[sp332]

We learned a bunch of tells as time went on. We videotape all of our interviews, and before each round of interviews, we look at the game tapes from the last round. By then, we know something about how these start-ups turned out, either good or bad. Sometimes, you look at that video and say, "We would have been fooled by these guys again." But sometimes, we can see: "Aha! They're doing X."

That's not predjudice, that's... post-judice? Andy Grove, Elon Musk, and Sergey Brin are exceptions in many ways, so they're not really good indicators.

[theorique]

Additionally, Andy Grove, Elon Musk, and Sergey Brin speak very clear, understandable, and yes, accented English.

What PG actually said is that speakers with accents so thick that the YC team had to interrupt frequently to ask them to repeat themselves, tended not to be successful.

I think the problem was that PG used the term "accent" rather than "communication problem" or "could not understand what they were saying".

It's about the communication, not the fact that English is not their native language.