I think I failed to communicate. Let's try a different version and call it the "no assholes rule". If I hired someone who was a top 1% engineer but was a comp

I think I failed to communicate. Let's try a different version and call it the "no assholes rule". If I hired someone who was a top 1% engineer but was a complete asshole to work with, that's someone who would fail the asshole test. It's extremely unlikely I'd have hired that person, we built a team of people who were both good at what they did and friendly with each other. The grocery store test I apparently completely screwed up in getting across what I meant. Someone who failed the asshole test would fail the grocery store test. What the grocery store test is trying to get across is how you would react when you saw a co-worker outside of work. Do you like them enough that you'd go say hi, maybe chat a little before moving on with your shopping? Or do you dislike them enough that you'd try and avoid them? If applied in the right way, it makes you think about the person in a broader sense than just their coding skills. If you like how they code and you would like to chat with them outside of work, that's a pretty strong indicator, in my experience, that you'll bond as a team. I'm not sure how I failed so badly at explaining that, whatever. The point is that building a team is not just about individual skills, it's also about how the team gets along. A soccer player recently was trying to make the same point when he said "you can buy any player you want, you can't buy a team". tl;dr: building a team is not just about skill, it's also about chemistry.