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Comment by spcoll | Hacker News Reader

I'm genuinely curious here: what if you happen to be frankly ugly? What if you are really awkward around people?

These characteristics don't necessarily mean you will be unable to build great products or a disruptive business. They don't mean your startup will fail. But they would almost certainly cause you to fail the character test.

Admittedly, being awkward and ugly does put your startup at a disadvantage because it will be a bit harder to recruit and a bit harder to close sales. But I am positive it is still possible to succeed if you are delivering real value. The product will speak for itself.

So aren't such character filters a bad business decision for YC? Aren't they passing on great startups by paying too much attention to things that ultimately don't impact success that much?

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There are lots of successful actors, politicians, business people, sales people, etc. who are subjectively "ugly" to many. It's rarely about looks.

Social skills, on the other hand, are important but, much like physical fitness, can be learned and trained unless you have a serious disability. Someone not willing to invest in their social skills might well deserve to fail a 'character test' for that reason alone.

Too bad attractive people are convicted less often by juries, receive more one-on-one attention by doctors, receive higher grades in school, etc. Read "Looks" by Gordon Patzer.

Looks matter a lot, even though it sucks. It's called the Halo Effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect

You have a depressingly narrow definition of character.

Let's be realistic here. In a 10 minutes interview with a person, what will have the most impact on your impression: social awkwardness and uncomfortable looks, or abstract "moral qualities"?

"social awkwardness and uncomfortable looks" can be judged in seconds. If 5 seconds of the interview is spent grok'ing appearance and awkwardness, that leaves 595 seconds of the 10 minutes for moral qualities. In short, if you're honest and genuinue, you have ~99% of the time (minus time taken for the interviewer speaking) to get that across.

People with good social radar can make a good distinction between things like character and awkward/ugly. It's people who lack such radar who confuse these things.

Yes, but unfortunately, by that definition, most people think they have good social radar but only a tiny minority actually do. Jessica maybe in that tiny minority, but I'm not and you probably aren't either.

Find yourself a partner who is great at winning people over. You can make the best product in the world and it'll be useless to you if you can't even successfully pitch it to somebody. Soft skills are just as important as technical brilliance. That just seems to be the way of the world.

You appear to have a superficial view of character. Looks and awkwardness don't equate to, neither do they correlate with, a person's character (moral qualities). The 3 can occur in any combination and a person can perceive poor character from each combination.

Having "good character" generally means "being like me" to a lot of people. No abstract moral qualities involved.

As a person who is not particular agreeable to look at, and who can be quite introverted (maybe as a consequence), it is very noticeable that to me that "high-empathy" people are judging me on first impressions, not on my actions.

I don't think I'm a jerk. I always try to be extra nice (mostly because I want to, but also because I have to go the extra mile since I am otherwise socially challenged). Yet I just make others uncomfortable, in particular extroverts and socialites.

I think even people who avoid others for superficial reasons realize that's what they're doing. I.e. They know deep down that the other person is not necessarily bad, but just don't want to engage them. Naturally, they won't openly state whatever the superficial reasons for avoidance are, thus may hide under more acceptable ones like perceived bad character.

However, in a context like an accelerator interview where you're being assessed for potential success (financially, at team and company building), I think it's safe to say superficial reasons are more likely to be ignored.

Plus, many who've been exposed to bad characters before tend to remember the difference and how unlike their covers many books can be.

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