I interviewed them, BTW. Some things looked fishy (e.g. impressive tech, but all of the repos they listed were cloned, with trivial changes). It turned out tha

I interviewed them, BTW. Some things looked fishy (e.g. impressive tech, but all of the repos they listed were cloned, with trivial changes). It turned out that I knew their last CEO. It turned out that the candidate made-up the entry (exchanged emails, was given a task, never showed up, or emailed or anything) and claimed a 3-month internship experience. It is much worse than having a bad opinion on an employee (in the later, sure - maybe just the relationship, or the project, didn't work out). Hand-picked references are always, ekhm, hand-picked. I am not a judge so - I am interested in finding the best candidate, not to give anyone "a due process". And while many people are reasonably honest (sadly, there is some kind of social approval for soft-lies on interviews) some may totally invent their CV. And you never know with whom you talk.