[singular]

You talk about treatment, but you mention that this would form part of due diligence - presumably a treatment recommendation would cause the investors to pull out?

Good luck diagnosing depression when the person being questioned knows it's the difference between his company getting investment or not - here's an e.g. form typical of the assessment you get (in the UK) - http://www.sabp.nhs.uk/Documents/D1.3d2.pdf

How do you think the candidate is going to answer to a question like 'I feel like life is not worth living?' in this situation?

And you didn't respond to my points about marriage, and drug-taking kids. I don't see why they can't be assessed if we permit assessment of mental health as a potential cause of harm to investee/investor.

Perhaps we could look into a candidate's sex life to see if he or his partner are performing satisfactorily? Sexual frustration might take a toll on a startup. Perhaps check to see if there's an ill relative who might die during the life of the startup?

Additionally, I think there's a question of how much you can really assess this stuff.

I knew a person who lost a grandparent + split up with his girlfriend + subsequently failed his degree as a consequence despite a lot of assistance, where I myself experienced considerably worse circumstances with no assistance from the university whatsoever - how would you differentiate between us? Some assessment as to our resilience perhaps?

Not to sound cliched, but this really is a slippery slope situation, even if we could reasonably expect to achieve an accurate assessment.

[benologist]

All the investors need to know is you cooperated, they don't need to know what that means. Maybe that means you went and were fine, maybe that means you went and got recommended for some additional therapy.

Education, stigma etc are massive parts of the problem. Being forced to confront it and forcing an industry to confront it head on sounds good to me. When you wait for a depressed person to realize they need help and decide to take action and actually do it you wait too long.

I have no point of reference for marriage and drug-taking kids. I don't know if well adjusted people can leave their problems at home but depressed people cannot, and I do have some experience with that including seeing it take a life.

[singular]

I'm very sorry to hear that you had to see it take somebody's life, that really is a terrible thing, and my heart goes out to you.

I am a depressive myself so have some experience, and dislike any idea that somebody might avoid employing me/feel leery about my advancing in the workplace because of it (even posting about it here makes me feel uncomfortable because of this stigma.)

Though I applaud the idea that people become more aware of the risks esp. in the computing industry/startups, I think the idea of assessing it being part of due diligence would simply encourage more stigma about it - 'who wants a 'crazy person' in charge of our money?' many will think, sadly.

Anyway, on the subject of depression I have a lot of experience so if you want to talk about that if it'd be of any benefit, feel free to email me (see my profile) :-)