The problem with someone like Xah is that you don't quite know what you're getting yourself into. Why has he not worked for a decade, and what reassurances are

The problem with someone like Xah is that you don't quite know what you're getting yourself into. Why has he not worked for a decade, and what reassurances are there that he will be able to be productive? There's no chain of trust that would prove that you're not hiring some kind of a ticking timebomb. There's no proof that he's up to speed with any tech since the 90s. There's no proof that he'd not be potentially very quirky and difficult to work with in a team environment. It's a very difficult position to be hired from, and it mostly has to do with the fact that he "let himself go" for a long time. If you have the option between hiring someone good and "someone potentially good, but also very unpredictable, high-risk and likely to be a long-term project", you'd go with the former every single time, it's a no-brainer.