While I can definitely see how it could take a long time, the last time I went through the hiring process, it included every step but #4 and was completed in ab

While I can definitely see how it could take a long time, the last time I went through the hiring process, it included every step but #4 and was completed in about 1.5 weeks. I suspect that length of time it takes to complete a hire is probably a good proxy for measuring bureaucracy in an organization. A low-bureaucracy team (like StackExchange?) can get through all these steps pretty quickly if they want to.