"This assumes from the outset that you know the difference between a good future employee and a bad one." -- Not really; his simulation assumed the hiring process had error bars of 15%.

It should probably be a lot higher than that.

And that only further proves the importance of Norvig's point.

Do you double your number of cars or romantic partners every year? Then the analogy might hold and the strategy might work.

All of those problems require one very important thing: an assessment of the prospective employee, car, or woman. I'm sure Dr. Norvig has plenty to say about evaluating prospective employees, but it is still the hardest part about hiring better employees (my opinion, but with no actual hiring experience).