This is the problem though. There really isn't any clear evidence one way or the other in your example. Predicting how someone will perform in a particular context is incredibly difficult (see the frequent disagreements on HN surrounding the hiring process). More technical proficiency might or might not translate to better overall performance in your particular case.
Meanwhile, the other candidate has already been in what was presumably a substantially similar situation. Given that the previous startup succeeded, I'd assign good odds (but no guarantee, of course!) of that candidate having performed well (all else being equal, a startup with dead weight seems statistically unlikely to succeed).
> You could argue for either justification, honestly, but it's the failure to see a distinction that strikes me as religious.
It might not be that someone else is failing to see a distinction (social status vs technical proficiency vs something else), but rather that they disagree with your estimates of how much various factors will contribute to the likelihood of success for a candidate in the first place. In other words, I think someone might reasonably disagree with you that there's a meaningful distinction to be made here. Such a view would of course be expected to lend their actions the appearance of religious dogma from your perspective.
The first part of your comment is arguing for the second justification. Which I agreed was logically fine to do, and I think you laid out the case well.
The second part seems to reveal a difference in opinion unlikely to be resolved easily in this forum. Food for thought, though - thank you!
Whoops, I didn't mean it to read like that. I actually happen to agree with you (that social status is a likely factor in certain cases for VC, and that people often seem uncomfortable about acknowledging such things). I was just trying to illustrate that it's at least possible for someone's behavior to appear dogmatic when in reality their mental model is carefully reasoned but differs from yours.
For sure, point well taken. There is a question of differing goals and values there between me and the "startup" or "get rich" people, I think, but I suppose we all have our own dogma in the end.
This is the problem though. There really isn't any clear evidence one way or the other in your example. Predicting how someone will perform in a particular context is incredibly difficult (see the frequent disagreements on HN surrounding the hiring process). More technical proficiency might or might not translate to better overall performance in your particular case.
Meanwhile, the other candidate has already been in what was presumably a substantially similar situation. Given that the previous startup succeeded, I'd assign good odds (but no guarantee, of course!) of that candidate having performed well (all else being equal, a startup with dead weight seems statistically unlikely to succeed).
> You could argue for either justification, honestly, but it's the failure to see a distinction that strikes me as religious.
It might not be that someone else is failing to see a distinction (social status vs technical proficiency vs something else), but rather that they disagree with your estimates of how much various factors will contribute to the likelihood of success for a candidate in the first place. In other words, I think someone might reasonably disagree with you that there's a meaningful distinction to be made here. Such a view would of course be expected to lend their actions the appearance of religious dogma from your perspective.