[maeon3]

I'm not sure why people beat themselves up so much for not passing a candidate filter where teams of people select a candidate from a list based on various criteria and instinct. It has been mathematically demonstrated that these processes fail at doing a better job than throwing a dart at a wall containing a list of all the candidates.

When I get a rejection letter for anything, I shrug and treat it like losing a raffle. I don't sweat it, the ticket candidate selection process is not based on merit, it's based on randomness.

[DanielRibeiro]

Just to remind some people:

- Damien Katz (creator of CouchDB) was also rejected[1]. He went on and got $2 million from Redpoint Ventures [2]

- On this video[3], Jessica Livingston interviews Drew. It shows that he was also rejected the first time he tried out YC.

- The oscar of rejected but finally accepted: I got into YC after applying six times [4]

- Peteris Krumins also got rejected with his browserling idea, got rejected[5], and went on to raise his own seed funding[6].

[1] http://damienkatz.net/2006/11/how_not_to_pitc.html

[2] http://damienkatz.net/2009/12/relaxed_inc.html

[3] http://ycombinator.posterous.com/dropbox-interview-now-onlin...

[4] http://iamwil.posterous.com/i-got-into-yc-after-applying-six...

[5] http://www.catonmat.net/blog/launching-browserling/

[6] http://www.catonmat.net/blog/how-i-raised-money-for-browserl...

[yummyfajitas]

...a filter which has been mathematically demonstrated to fail at doing better than random chance at picking good candidates

Where could I read more about this?

[maeon3]

Read Joel's epic post here describing the phenomenon: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html

The 'dead sea effect' is caused by this phenomenon: http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-d...

Hiring managers get the technical competency part right but they completely miss the most important things: work-ethic, tenacity, responsibility, team skills, organizational and planning ability, cultural fit, and decision-making. When you hire based on qualities that have no relevance (as all companies everywhere do), you might as well get some monkeys to throw darts on the wall. it'll speed up the process! http://www.adlerconcepts.com/resources/column/newsletter/ran...

[zasz]

I don't think either of those two blog posts support your point that randomly picking candidates is as good as actively trying to select for good ones. If none of the candidates applying to YC were good enough to pass some minimal threshold, pg and co. just wouldn't take anyone, unlike the horrible companies in your links who will always take what they think is the top 1%.

I think your last sentence doesn't make sense either. Since when did technical competence not count for anything? Both competence and teamwork are necessary, but neither alone is sufficient.

Point is, randomly picking candidates is a crap idea.

[nhangen]

Same reason people get frustrated for not getting into the college they wanted to attend. Sometimes, it's nice to win.

[cgag]

Can you post a link or something about the not being able to beat random chance thing?

[seigenblues]

I can't give you an exact example for recruiting, but it seems like a very similar process in picking stocks. If you can imagine why lessons there might be applicable, you could look up the criticisms about mutual funds/"actively managed" funds vs. broad indices.

[wavephorm]

In previous YC rejections I've thought to myself "wow if they rejected me they must have recieved some pretty spectacular applications". And then months later when I see the list of companies that did get in I was like "wtf did they really fund a location-based social network for cat fanatics?".

[sbisker]

And then you find out that they've managed to get an entire network of cat food distributors on board, and are currently pulling down $50,000 in revenue after having launched the third version of their site a week before applying. Oh, and one of the founders used to be the editor of Cat Fancy.

Sure, some mistakes will get made - but a company's success factors are rarely as simple as their three-word description.

[akkartik]

I used to hear the ideas and react the same way. But then I meet the founders and I'm like, ok it makes sense now.

[tamle]

i like your style good sir/maam