Unfortunately, none of the descriptions demystify the magic. Maybe I am reading the descriptions incorrectly, but the actual logic behind the magic is never explained. The descriptions only contain an appeal to a magic oracle power.
>But after the interview, the three of us would turn to Jessica and ask "What does the Social Radar say?" [1]
The footnote for that quote says:
>...
>"She was always good at sniffing out any red flags about the team or their determination and disarmingly asking the right question, which usually revealed more than the founders realized."
I'd be interested in reading or knowing more about the questions which were asked, instead of a direct appeal to authority (right question), what the questions revealed, and what the founders actually realized.
As far as I can tell, these details never get discussed publicly.
I don't get the impression there's much magic. She's highly socially skilled around people who are less so.
Imagine if Jessica ran a VC firm with two other people like her, plus Paul, and they were trying to fund companies that required immense social skills. The founders would all be excellent conversationalists and promoters, and could probably fake the tech talk enough that Jessica couldn't tell. PG would be able to spot the buzzwords and call them on it, and it would seem magical to the rest because they don't know SQL from C++.
>I don't get the impression there's much magic. She's highly socially skilled around people who are less so.
I try not to believe in magic as well, so I assume there are reasons why a particular founder was judged unsuitable. It's just that those reasons are not explored and all the language used to described the YC process is essentially an appeal to a magic oracle.
>Imagine if Jessica ran a VC firm with two other people like her, plus Paul, and they were trying to fund companies that required immense social skills.
I've never been inside a VC firm, so it's difficult for me to imagine precisely what that would be like. Are you saying that the scenario in this hypothetical is different from YC?
>The founders would all be excellent conversationalists and promoters, and could probably fake the tech talk enough that Jessica couldn't tell. PG would be able to spot the buzzwords and call them on it, and it would seem magical to the rest because they don't know SQL from C++.
It sounds like a decent strategy. Certainly not foolproof, but at least you can filter out the people who understand the language, but not yet the technicals...I think.
My grandfather was a pub owner -- he could talk to anyone about anything, and was often able to de-escalate people and situations. I remember him being a fluent reader of body language... he could size somebody up and immediately & accurately tell you that the person was trouble.
"Unfortunately, none of the descriptions demystify the magic. Maybe I am reading the descriptions incorrectly, but the actual logic behind the magic is never explained. The descriptions only contain an appeal to a magic oracle power."
Which says, to me, that pg doesn't understand it, either. He just trusts it based on historical reliability.
I'd also be curious to know what some of those magically insightful questions were, but I don't think it nullifies the point of the article to not include them.
Unfortunately, none of the descriptions demystify the magic. Maybe I am reading the descriptions incorrectly, but the actual logic behind the magic is never explained. The descriptions only contain an appeal to a magic oracle power.
>But after the interview, the three of us would turn to Jessica and ask "What does the Social Radar say?" [1]
The footnote for that quote says:
>...
>"She was always good at sniffing out any red flags about the team or their determination and disarmingly asking the right question, which usually revealed more than the founders realized."
I'd be interested in reading or knowing more about the questions which were asked, instead of a direct appeal to authority (right question), what the questions revealed, and what the founders actually realized.
As far as I can tell, these details never get discussed publicly.