I don't think this is just limited to startups, most of the stuff here could apply to any company. Maybe the advice should be, don't "apply" for jobs period.

I don't think this is just limited to startups, most of the stuff here could apply to any company. Maybe the advice should be, don't "apply" for jobs period. I always imagine that being an employer advertising a genuine job on a job board (in this economy) is probably a similar experience to being a supermodel and signing up for a dating website. I wonder how well the networking approach will scale, I imagine it could get annoying very quickly being a company CEO or whatever and getting hundreds of emails every day from people who want to "have a chat about X".