[sokoloff]

Each bias skews the same direction for each person, but not every bias is in the same direction for individual people. (Some people are biased in favor of Harvard/Ivy League graduates. Other people are biased against those exact same candidates. Bias is not by definition unidirectional for all people.)

The YC partners are trying to be similarly biased against entrepreneurs who (they believe) will not be successful in the program.

They are much less likely to be similarly biased against irrelevant factors like accents, mannerisms, backgrounds, etc.

[richmarr]

> They are much less likely to be similarly biased against irrelevant factors like accents, mannerisms, backgrounds, etc.

They're not less biased, they just average out their biases over the group.

Your assumption is that three people chosen from a fairly homogenous pool are going to cancel out each others biases, which is... optimistic.

I don't know from this conversation what they're actually doing, but what they should be doing is using a diverse set of opinions to create a fixed set of questions and a fixed marking scheme, and then sticking to it for that round of interviews. Then looking back over time at every interview question and analysing how well it predicted later outcomes.

[sokoloff]

If you think they're sub-optimizing because of biases and a poor process, maybe that represents an opportunity for you or someone else to use your method to outcompete them.

Their track record suggests they're doing pretty well.

[richmarr]

So your argument is that they should be above examination of their interview process because their investments are doing well? Come on, you're just arguing for the sake of it now.

Multiple independent assessments are great at reducing random noise. Bias is noise, sure, but it's by definition not random so you need other forms of intervention to counter it.