Let's dispense with the "right or wrong" aspect of this, because I don't think it's helpful towards moving the needle on this, and instead evaluate this as a ma

Let's dispense with the "right or wrong" aspect of this, because I don't think it's helpful towards moving the needle on this, and instead evaluate this as a matter of complementary perspectives. Does reputation matter? Yes. This I will openly concede. Do I think credentials are meaningless? No. Where we disagree is "thinking that this matters". I still think it absolutely does, and think the analogy is a poor one. You clearly think it doesn't, that's fine, but I don't think it makes either one of us less or more wrong. Perhaps that's all there is at play here, a difference of opinion in how an organization prosecutes the search for a qualified expert in security, medicine or law; and I think it's revealingly disingenuous to frame such organizational decision making and risk tolerances when seeking professional services with rigid and inflexible absolutes of "right way" or "wrong way" or whether or not method A matters whereas method B doesn't.