Cheat Mode
We're currently recruiting into our team at the Associate level.
As part of the process, we took a step back to think about whether our current process and case study is really the best way of finding the best talent in the new era of AI.
Our first thought stream was how to stop candidates from simply regurgitating AI-given answers in the case study section of the interview. We give the candidates the deck we want them to evaluate a couple of days in advance to prepare some considered thoughts. It's pretty trivial to upload a start-up's pitch deck to any number of AI tools and ask them to critically evaluate the pitch and output a draft investment memo with recommendation.
We thought about a few loophole-closers. Using tools to sniff out AI-generated content. Explicitly prohibiting AI and asking a 'lie to my face' point blank question in the interview to probe whether they in fact used it, contrary to instructions. Giving the case study as in-person assessment with an air-gapped laptop (or even paper and pen?), forcing people to think from personal principles alone. And so on.
Pretty quickly, we realised how stupid that whole route was. We want the candidates to use AI. That's the whole point! We need extremely scrappy, resourceful, intellectually-curious, driven, high-energy people who are using the best available tools to get the best available information as quickly as possible. If anyone in our team isn't using AI, they're almost certainly not a fit with the lean-forward culture we're trying to encourage.
Sure, we need people to overlay independent thought and reasoning on top of AI output so we're not trusting generic babble, but rather robust logic based on the specifics of the case. But it's an "and", not an "or".
It's obvious in retrospect, but I can't help but find it funny that even we - VCs who are supposed to be at the pointiest possible end of tech utopianism - briefly trended towards a Luddite 'preventionist' mentality. There's no holding the AI wave back: so let's recruit the best surfers.