That results in biased hiring based on "I like this person, they think/talk like me".

> look at the candidate's public code contributions

Also biased hiring on candidates who have the time & inclination to do extra-curricular coding at the required level.

> Founders have a financial incentive to not hire bad candidates

All companies have financial incentives to not hire bad candidates, the cost a bad hire on productivity and cost to manage them out is high. In fact, the incentives are so strong that the entire hiring system is optimized to avoid bad hires at the cost of missing out on good hires.

That's why the system is so frustrating - only strong candidates with clear signals get hired.