[Ologn]

Having interviewed many people over the years (not for an accelerator though), you can easily tell within ten minutes if someone can not pass muster. I have never had anyone who stumbled over the first three questions I asked them, recover on subsequent questions. Nowadays, the only reason I keep interviewing people who stumble over the first three questions is out of politeness.

As I am usually interviewing people for one position, which they need to perform well in, it would take more than ten minutes to get to a yes. But since YC gives sixty or more yeses a batch, and they still win if only a few of them pan out to be a Dropbox or Reddit, than they can probably afford to give a yes in the first ten minutes as well. Because who is a superstar is obvious in the first ten minutes as well. The only question for a superstar beyond the first ten minutes is if they are a fit or not (for example, would the obviously motivated and skilled author of Temple OS, who is marked dead here on HN, be a fit).

[sridharvembu]

I have to disagree with the "can easily tell within ten minutes if someone cannot pass muster" part. Interviewing is hard. We tend to make such snap judgments but those judgments reflect our own biases.

I have come to believe over the years that interviewing measures interviewing skills. Test scores measure test taking skills. Success on the job requires success-on-the-job (to coin a phrase) skills. All those things correlate, but the correlation coefficient is not super high. In fact, ignoring those correlations can be an effective strategy to find great people.

[Arnor]

Aren't "interviewing skills" essential to founders? Isn't a YC interview basically a chance to pitch your company and answer probing questions about your plan? Seems like a pretty fair qualification to me...

[dasil003]

Only if fundraising is your endgame, which admittedly it is for a lot of wantrepreneurs.

[theorique]

Fundraising is not a CEO's endgame, but it's very similar to the day-to-day of CEO work: promoting the company to others; being the public face; communicating clearly, concisely, and effectively; making sure that the company 'works' in all the ways that matter.

All of these are 'soft skill' competencies that hackers tend to downplay. But you need someone who can do this and do it well.

[dasil003]

I don't downplay the importance of those skills, but are they essential to all CEOs? Does every company need a public face? Absolutely not, at least not for startups, depending on your core competencies and what makes you a good CEO, the public facing stuff to the extent that it is necessary in any given company can be delegated.

[WalterSear]

I don't think that's the case.

[iqster]

In deep tech, no.

[001sky]

This is absurdly reductionist.

[pjscott]

Assume for a moment that I don't know what you mean by 'reductionist'; why is it wrong?

[001sky]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism[#]

In other words, you by failing to distinguish scaling phenomena (1->N) with a gating criteria (0,1), you are making an attribution error concerning the "essentialness" of your explanatory variable.

For example: co-founders are typically not "interviewed" for the job. But (a) their selection is essential; and (b) if you can find a co-founder, you can find any lesser employee.

It could be argued, that having the ability to "recruit" without formal interview is actually a more essential skill.

[Arnor]

Better than absurdly pompous...

[rjzzleep]

except you completely disregard cultural backgrounds, but meh. to each their own. interviewing just like any other skill can be practiced.

edit: not saying i disagree per se. I can tell really quickly if someone knows their shit by working with them for a day... or so i'd like to think. the truth is i've been completely misjudged based on interviews before. i've seen people on top of their fields do the same mistakes with other people because they "seemed to know" based on talk. in the end talk is just that, talk.

[PakG1]

You know, I know that PG has been beaten to death over the speaking English with an accent thing, which is unfortunate, because it got away from what he was trying to say. But this is an interesting point. Culture, language, and other similar factors that could lead to poor interview performance is something that I hope we can somehow figure a way around.

Now given that, let me say that I completely understand what PG was trying to say there, and I hope that I haven't hijacked the conversation.

[btilly]

Let's not leave the "speaking with an accent thing" alone for a second.

PG's point was that if your accent is sufficiently strong that people have trouble understanding you, then you have a big problem. And that's something that is obvious in a sentence. So person opens their mouth, and you know it is a no.

If the person merely has an accent, that's OK.

And so we have confirmation of what he's saying now. There are times when it is obvious within the first 10 minutes, in fact in the first 2, that you need to say no.

[jpeterson]

you can easily tell within ten minutes if someone can not pass muster

Nope, you cannot. I think it's highly likely that there are some rather large biases in your process.

This goes for pg too.

[sumedh]

> Nope, you cannot. This goes for pg too.

I dont know about PG but Warren Buffett says the same thing when it comes to buying new business that he make a decision within 5 minutes.