I thought this was a great commentary and it reminds me of the tendency of early-stage CEOs to say, "we really don't care that much about your current skill set

I thought this was a great commentary and it reminds me of the tendency of early-stage CEOs to say, "we really don't care that much about your current skill set, we just want to hire athletes" ('athlete' in this case meaning someone very talented and hard-working). The message these founders are trying to communicate here is, "we want to hire people who have the capacity to learn and grow and who are willing to work long hours, so we'll overindex on those qualities and be accept the fact that many people who fit these criteria are more risky hires, in that they have not been doing a similar job at another company prior to us hiring them." Based on anecdotal observations of many hiring decisions, what these founders often actually have in mind is, "we want to hire people who've achieved prestigious milestones". And so they will hire a person whose school prestige/GPA/employer prestige factor is high, but who is not likely to succeed in the role. Anyway the upside of all this is, as OP mentioned, there's a lot of underserved talent out there.