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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3522 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 8, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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One of my closest friends is a CEO of a medium sized tech company, and after years on the job he is convinced that correct hiring is by far the most important part of a well-functioning company. Good people make everything easier, and even just a few troublemakers can drag everything down. According to him, most experienced managers he's talked with agree.

You may claim they are wrong, but I'd be surprised if managers in prestigious, ultra competitive fields think differently.

Of course, since the answer to "is x perfect" is almost always "no", for any important irl task. The actually relevant question is "are their hiring practices EV+, especially compared to whatever deepneuralnetwork wants them to do?" to which the answer is also "of course".

You don't seem to grasp how much money is on the line and/or how important even a small statistical edge can be in ultra-competitive fields.

No. This isn't coding or even math proofs where you could plausibly be a prodigy working on it by yourself since you're ten. You're fresh out of an okay college. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to think that you have any idea what you're talking about in respect to hiring compared to companies who have been doing and optimizing this for literal decades. You are the equivalent of a kid watching his first starcraft video and, never having played it, announcing that you're probably better than the best players in the entire world because you have identified something that you think was a mistake. Hell, no, you haven't even watched the video, you've only been told about it second-hand.

No. But if you're hiring the wrong people, I don't think you will become a successful quant firm.

I expect they'd get their lunch eaten by the firm hiring 99th to 99.9th percentile talent.

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