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The point was he didn't have a resume nor did he do any background checks because he was obsessed with the fact that this guy must be good because he was a former vp of a $100m company.

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VP of sales is the worst proxy for start-up skills you can think of. Firstly, a salesman in a big company might be good at reading off a script, or writing a highly polished script for worker bees to read off; but they aren't necessarily a good all-rounder. Second, it's common practice to give a VP position to anyone who asks for it, because it helps them convince customers that they are a mover and shaker in the company:

"Look, I'll ask the engineers to put it in the next patch." ... "Well, I'm a VP - they should listen."

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