[hn_throwaway_99]

For very early stage (2-5 people) companies, I understand. You're building the business together, will be making tons of moment-by-moment changes, and the working relationship is critical, so I understand. We took that approach initially at the startup where I work.

Once you start to grow significantly, though (series A or later) it's just become much to prohibitively difficult to hire significant numbers of great people if we limit ourselves to the teeny area around our office. This is especially true for some hires where we need specialized expertise.

Companies love to crow about diversity, and one of the primary reasons they give is that diversity is a natural consequence of searching high and low for all the best people. Imagine if you limited your hiring to only brunettes with green eyes. Limiting your company to a teeny geographic monoculture is no less absurd. This is why I think VCs should take a long hard critical look at any growing company that is not willing to expand their geographic diversity.