What I'm seeing a lot of is discomfort with the seemingly arbitrary nature of social interactions and making judgments based on them. We nerds (and I am among this bunch) don't really like the fact that popularity, "emotional IQ", and social influence are not quantifiable, but we are judged on them, anyway. When someone wants to be judged on very clear metrics, being told there is a mysterious "other" metric that seems to reside in the head of one person, is uncomfortable, maybe even frightening.
The thing is, however, that everything you do will also have this metric applied to it, by everyone you interact with, and it is a metric that impacts success. Any sales interaction you have, any hiring process you implement, any investor meeting you have, etc. All human interactions will be judged with this metric in addition to the other metrics. Is it "fair"? I don't know. But, it is reality. Given that, having someone who is good at it, on a team that is otherwise not good at it (and having read pg on nerds and popularity, I can surmise he considers himself not terribly good at it; nerds in general are famously socially inept), is worthwhile.
Which raises the concern that the social ineptitude of a technically brilliant founder might prevent them from getting into YC (and I think that is the fear being expressed in this thread). I can say that most YC founders I know are charming people; nerdy, mostly, but still charming and socially adept, at least when interacting with similarly nerdy peers. Is this a prerequisite for startup success? And, is it actually what is being selected for when we talk about this "social radar"? I don't know. I don't think I have this particular skill strongly enough to recognize a hit and a miss on these metrics, though I can spot technical fakery a mile away (and there's a surprisingly high number of applicants who are technically incompetent trying to pass for competent; I suspect few make it past the application process).
>We nerds (and I am among this bunch) don't really like the fact that popularity, "emotional IQ", and social influence are not quantifiable, but we are judged on them, anyway.
It's not exactly that such things are not quantifiable, but that PG is unable to express what is being judged other than in the same few, undefined words, at least in this essay. An example of such judgement is never given, it is only asserted that correct judgement can be dispensed by Jessica. That is a magic oracle. No basis is provided for the judgement (other than its source), only the judgement itself.
Now, as others have pointed out, I doubt this is exactly how it happens. Most likely Jessica brings to light some contradiction, however, the essay doesn't go into what those contradictions have been, or might be. The essay really only provides the view that the contradictions are blessed and therefore automatically accepted.
The concern here is that PG is propagating concepts like "character", "Social Radar", etc., without being able to define what they are. Others may try to replicate this and start their own cargo cult, which has applied its own secret definition of those words, in order to work the magic sauce.
What is so hard about the concept/metric being applied here that it can't be put into words?
"Others may try to replicate this and start their own cargo cult, which has applied its own secret definition of those words, in order to work the magic sauce."
As I mentioned I would like for more investors to try to behave like YC, even if they're unsuccessful in the attempt.
And, there are already many investors cargo culting the YC process. I don't think that's a bad thing; they aren't as successful (I guess TechStars is the nearest analog so far), but they're trying to replicate the winning formula. They may fail in a variety of interesting ways, because it is cargo culting in many cases, but by trying to do things more like YC they're likely making the world a little better for early stage founders.
"What is so hard about the concept/metric being applied here that it can't be put into words?"
Again, I would guess pg doesn't understand it, and so can't quantify it, but trusts that Jessica's correct more often than not. It doesn't seem like pg was even trying to show everyone how to do what Jessica does, just to clarify that she does many things within YC and that she has often been forgotten in the telling of the YC story; explaining that does not require him to explain how it works.
> "What is so hard about the concept/metric being applied here that it can't be put into words?"
> Again, I would guess pg doesn't understand it, and so can't quantify it, but trusts that Jessica's correct more often than not. It doesn't seem like pg was even trying to show everyone how to do what Jessica does, just to clarify that she does many things within YC and that she has often been forgotten in the telling of the YC story; explaining that does not require him to explain how it works.
I can have a stab at an explanation here. I'm sort of straddling the border (being a "socially inept" nerd by nature, and having invested considerable amounts of time over the last 15 years in getting better at the "social stuff") and know enough people who are on the other side, and have spoken with them often enough, to have formed some ideas about this.
First, most people who are really good at this tend to be at a stage of unconscious competence. It's not really something you teach to others very frequently, so it's rare to find someone who spends the time to analyse their own analysis of others, which helps explain the "mystery factor" here. As they say, if it takes 10 years to get good at something, it takes another 10 years to get good at teaching it to other people!
In my experience people who get very good at this tend to be (like Jessica is described in this article) people who have a strong discomfort around conflict and/or other people's distress. I don't know what the chicken/egg situation is - which comes first, the sensitivity to other people's distress, or the skill in reading other people's emotional states? Either way, the two combine and lead to someone who spends a lot of time being aware of how people around them are feeling, what they're thinking about, etc, so that they can detect potential conflicts very early and head them off before they cause distress. Like anything else, you get good at what you do a lot, and someone who spends a lot of time thinking about what's going on in other people's heads is, over a few decades, going to naturally develop an incredible (from the outside, almost magical) skill at reading people from what are almost unnoticeable cues like tone of voice, body language, the content of what they say, what they don't say, etc.
Ultimately what this boils down to, imho, is building a model of the other person in your head. Think of your best friend, the one you understand most - you probably have a model of them in your head. You could have a conversation with that model and, if you have known them for a while and are not totally insensitive to people (which is possible... don't beat yourself up about it!) you can probably predict how they would react to a given situation with a fairly high degree of accuracy. Sure, you'll get it wrong from time to time, but you'll get it mostly right. People who are good at this "social stuff" just build those models much, much more rapidly, and much more accurately, than you do, through practice and habit, and they do so constantly throughout the day with everyone they bump into, so they get to practice that over and over again, and keep getting better.
This is a good explanation and probably close to how it works. However, the "build a model of the other person in your head" method isn't foolproof. In fact, the longer you consider it, the less sense it seems to make. Your model can never be accurate to what that person is thinking (might as well not even have the person if you can already simulate their entire mind in yours). It would be dangerous to think that you have an actual model of someone's mind (as opposed to a model of your own perceptions of someone's mind).
The thing is, however, that everything you do will also have this metric applied to it, by everyone you interact with, and it is a metric that impacts success. Any sales interaction you have, any hiring process you implement, any investor meeting you have, etc. All human interactions will be judged with this metric in addition to the other metrics. Is it "fair"? I don't know. But, it is reality. Given that, having someone who is good at it, on a team that is otherwise not good at it (and having read pg on nerds and popularity, I can surmise he considers himself not terribly good at it; nerds in general are famously socially inept), is worthwhile.
Which raises the concern that the social ineptitude of a technically brilliant founder might prevent them from getting into YC (and I think that is the fear being expressed in this thread). I can say that most YC founders I know are charming people; nerdy, mostly, but still charming and socially adept, at least when interacting with similarly nerdy peers. Is this a prerequisite for startup success? And, is it actually what is being selected for when we talk about this "social radar"? I don't know. I don't think I have this particular skill strongly enough to recognize a hit and a miss on these metrics, though I can spot technical fakery a mile away (and there's a surprisingly high number of applicants who are technically incompetent trying to pass for competent; I suspect few make it past the application process).