> > In your case, "everyone knows he can't code", so he doesn't have stellar reputation

> Yes that’s what we figured out after he got hired. He obviously didn’t have a reputation within our org before he got hired. All we had to go off was the engineering managers opinion.

Right, *he doesn't have stellar reputation*, and he got hired. The comment you replied to said "hire people with stellar reputation". I'm still not sure what you're missing here or why you think this is an applicable scenario.

> Are you guys really shocked that given the freedom to, people would rather hire their friends and people they know would do them favours rather than the “objectively best candidate for the job”?

I wouldn't be shocked, but I also don't think that what the "GP" advocated for. You might say this would lead to people using it as an excuse for nepotism, but if the engineering manager is the kind of person who has poor or malicious judgment and can't make a correct hiring decision by himself, then you're cooked no matter what.