[lapcat]

> “ The best summer intern that I ever hired”

What's the sample size?

> supports that the CTO was a better judge of the candidate.

No, it doesn't, because the hiring manager's choice never got a chance to show what they could do. Besides, the fact that the nepotistic hire worked out could have been just dumb luck. After all, hiring is a crapshoot, especially hiring interns.

Regardless, this was clearly nepotism, and the question isn't whether the CTO could judge the candidate, the question is whether favoritism was shown toward a family friend, which is indisputably the case.