>> So what do I think of sifting through the internet for personal information about candidates? It isn't performance-based. Two days ago I made one of the big

>> So what do I think of sifting through the internet for personal information about candidates? It isn't performance-based. Two days ago I made one of the bigger decisions of my life: I decided to abandon any attempt to salvage a bio-tech company I co-founded ten years ago. One of the other founders had a quite brilliant invention that I'm more convinced than ever will work. Yet, after ten years, I finally realized that a company is fundamentally its people and how they interact. His performance (narrow sense) as a scientist was tremendous. As a human being? Well, there's the fact that he's been in and out of jail several times for assault and battery as well as drunk and disorderly. And the fact that every time we get close to making a major advance he steps in to sabotage it, which he has done several times by calling customers, vendors and big investors and screaming at them. And the fact that he takes absolutely no responsibility for his actions. Some of his craziness is apparent from his web page. If he'd had a web page ten years ago I might never have gotten involved and wasted ten years and a lot of money pursuing a dream that depends on someone who has failed at everything in his life and is absolutely intent on making sure he fails at this. So, raganwald, it all depends on what you mean by "performance". One thing that I am 100% certain of, how someone treats other people, how much they complain instead of take action, etc., is largely what I mean by performance. One dirt bag can make everyone else on the team miserable, and drive the good people away. I would never ask to log into anyone's social web page. I will always check on their background, including using search engines.