I'd also like to take a moment to chime in here. I competed in Pioneer for the first three monthly tournaments, ranking high (and being selected as a finalist)

I'd also like to take a moment to chime in here. I competed in Pioneer for the first three monthly tournaments, ranking high (and being selected as a finalist) but never was selected as a winner. From the beginning, it has been apparent that expert voting plays a significant role. I'm not sure if they're still describing the Tournament like this, but I remember an early descriptor of Pioneer as being a system to find great talent, as a way for people to get the visibility. If that's the case, it serves its goal. I definitely have seen problems with just letting the winners be determined solely off of score. If Pioneers were simply selected by the algorithm, it wouldn't result in a good experience, since what other applicants find important about other applicants can differ than what the actual tournament organizers and experts find important. When I participated though, I certainly had some of the same concerns the OP presents about transparency. When we stopped participating in the tournament, I reached out to the Pioneer team via email to share some of those concerns, and they were very receptive. They took the time to reply to everything I wrote, point by point, and acknowledged their shortcomings. What Daniel (the founder) posted in this thread is true- they are working hard to try and improve the system continuously. I've gone back and forth on my feelings about Pioneer, but I have come to truly believe that they have a really excellent team that cares a lot about their mission and their participants.