I feel like these people took a lot of wrong lessons from this process, effectively interpreting lessons in terms of their own confirmation bias. Every single

I feel like these people took a lot of wrong lessons from this process, effectively interpreting lessons in terms of their own confirmation bias. Every single one of their three great engineers was hired based on establishing relationships with skilled folks, talking with them, and getting to know them as people. Lessons 2, 3, & 4? Not bad. Yet lesson 5? Grind their bones to dust with the most awful of modern hiring concepts - which was used for exactly 0 of their initial "top-tier code ninja rockstar" hires. They talk about it being haphazard, but the quote about evaluating people based on your "full-of-shit-meter" is almost spot on. Why do we keep insisting that hiring not be based on people? If people are motivated, quality, self-learning staff, they'll pick up whatever language, or API, or widget you throw at them. And if they're crap, they're crap. All four hours of tech. grilling is going to tell you is that you won't have to spend a couple weeks at slightly lower efficiency while they code using a language reference, or looking on StackExchange, rather than doing it from memory. What it won't reveal is that they're lazy, they just memorized a bunch of common tests, they can't actually think, or can't solve fuzzy problems you don't know you'll have. If you want hammers, then go buy a hammer, but if we want people, then we should stop beating our heads against walls, and go hire people. Paraphrasing of one of my favourite West Wing quotes: There was a man that lived by the river. He heard a radio report that the river was going to rush up and flood the town. And that all the residents should evacuate their homes. But the man said, "I’m religious. I pray. God will save me." The waters rose up. A guy in a row boat came along and he shouted, "Hey, hey you! You in there. The town is flooding. Let me take you to safety." But the man shouted back, "God will save me." A helicopter was hovering overhead. And a guy with a megaphone shouted, "Hey you, you down there. The town is flooding. Let me drop this ladder and I’ll take you to safety." But the man shouted back that he prayed, and that God will save him. Well...the man drowned. And standing at the gates, he said "I’m religious, I pray, I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?" The response? "I sent you a radio report, a helicopter, and a guy in a rowboat. What the hell are you doing here?"