> We're grown-ups and don't have to like each other to work together effectively.
This times 1000. A working relationship is not a friendship nor does it require any particularly strong "rapport". Though the idea that there's no difference between a working relationship and being best buds is, I guess, not uncommon in SV---something to protest against the next time an experiment like this is run, I guess.
This depends on the context of a working relationship. It is certainly true that if your manager hired you and some other guy, it is possible for you to work together effectively with the other guy, even if you seriously disliked him personally.
YC is much more of a "mentor+mentee" relationship than a regular "coworkers on a team" relationship. A mentor relationship is much less effective if there's no personal rapport between participants.
Do university professors call all their students individually before lessons start, just to build a "personal rapport"? No, they build it as they are mentoring. That's how it's done, if it's all about mentoring. Mentoring someone you know in advance and have a personal rapport with is just a form of patronizing.
Also, as others (maybe you, elsewhere?) have pointed out, it would have been a good experiment (!) to take Maciej on despite the initial cold feeling just to see what happened. Maybe it would have worked out! Maybe that would be a lesson about relying on vague gut feels!
Working relationships, especially an intense mentoring-type relationship that YC is trying to set up, certainly do require strong rapport.
To put it another way, suppose the best advice YC can give is to focus on something other than pinboard (or something like that), would idlewords listen? Because if not, what's the point?
I can see this is disappointing for idlewords, but overall, this seemed fair and reasonably transparent to me.
I'm worried the overall outcome is that instead of being a fun and interesting experiment, it's going to be a 'bad and sad' in YC's minds, and any future contest is going to have a lawyer writing the rules.
So, here's to a clearer 'judge's decision is final' next time and that the three accepted applicants turn out successful.
This times 1000. A working relationship is not a friendship nor does it require any particularly strong "rapport". Though the idea that there's no difference between a working relationship and being best buds is, I guess, not uncommon in SV---something to protest against the next time an experiment like this is run, I guess.