It seems like screening for people who can build an MVP and a compelling pitch deck could be one of the best ways to do this.
I worked in several companies bootstrapped by very wealthy founders.
If VCs think the idea is worthless and execution is everything why waste time listening to pitches? Just hire the best people able to execute, give them the money and get out of the way.
I know one who hosts his/her own 'career sessions' for selected Stanford students -- mostly to identify and build new teams after seeing interactions.
Driving across the street to Stanford "to identify and build new teams after seeing interactions" to scout talent isn't being proactive. It's what the rest of Sand Hill Road is already doing. If you're really serious about finding the best talent, broaden your search. Don't count the white Stanford males out, of course, but look in the "flyover" states, or for older programmers, or for women, or for parents who might be interested in programming because of the remote-work possibilities. Look outside of the US, even.
VCs are good at telling the 7s Who Look Like Them apart from the 5s Who Look Like Them, and that's about where it ends. That makes them better at assessing talent than a great many in the business world, but they're missing out on an incredible amount of information.
I don't understand this quip. Assuming you're talking about ability rather than attractiveness, it's odd that you leave out <5 or >7. Does that mean you think VCs have a blind spot for both superstars and low performers?
VCs can probably tell a 5 apart from a 3, but it doesn't matter because neither a 3 nor a 5 is someone you want to fund. They can't tell a 7 from a 9, is what I'm saying. If they're not dealing with people of similar pedigree and experience, they may not be able to tell a 9 from a 5, even.
I think that "ranking people" is a fascinating topic in itself - unlike some, I do think there is validity to doing this although you have to be really careful to avoid bias, and to measure against the proper scale. I'd be interested to understand yours!
[1] They aren't always: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Landau#Landau.27s_List
He has written a ton of stuff about VCs, programmers, etc. His riffs on the Gervais Principle are really good. He followed that up with some other gold.
The scale-of-10 stuff is his concept of how there is a mismatch of skill and power in the tech business world -- particularly between the programmer and the business folks. For example, highly-rated business people don't even work in tech -- they do other finance like private equity or hedge funds. That means that most of the top VCs are maybe 7s, and they're bitter about their relatively low status among their B-school peers. That also means that the top tech people (the 10s) struggle to find business people who are their equivalent of awesomeness. This is a short summary.. read the original stuff on the blog.
Some folks on HN do not like MO, so they seem to downvote him out of principle rather than based on the content. While I think that his tone can be terse at times (it seems to have gotten better in the past year or so), the content is often frighteningly spot on. I think that this makes some people uncomfortable.
My idea was more go out and hire all the great people (they are not that hard to find, just hire), pay them well (none of this 50% of the market wage in return for 0.0002% of the company), and put them to work with the minimium of outside friction. If you went to hire talent with an offer of good pay, total freedom in business direction, minimal VC politics, and solid financial support you would be able to put together some amazing teams. On top of this you could give up listening to crazy pitches from spotty 22 year olds.
Note also that the definition of great is a function of (atleast) timing and domain knowledge as well as raw ability.