The folly is thinking that getting hiring right is the solution at all.

As has been pointed out a) leaders matter, b) the difference in impact between great and mediocre/poor leadership is massive, c) even if you hire a great leader you can get poor results.

It follows then that spending more effort to find just the right person is not enough. You must also examine your overall organizational culture, your investors culture, your unspoken assumptions about the goals of your organization, etc etc.

And yes great leaders do all of this - of course - it becomes obvious upon reading my comment. But the point is great leaders doing this is not enough. The organization must be on the same page. You can lead a horse to water etc etc. And yes the leader can "Re-organize" but at that point you may find yourself faced with throwing the baby out with the bathwater unavoidably.

Leaders are necessary. And hiring is hard. But there is no one golden calf like "hire the perfect leader" that will solve a problem.

As with most things worth doing: you have to do it. Doing it is hard. And you might still not get the results you want.

They spend 18 rounds over six months vetting a developer with silly puzzles that must be solved from memory, with an audience. It's about as far from the job as possible.

This happened by trying to find capable people that didn't come to you through nepotism and paper mills and such.

The strange thing is that nobody has developed a hiring battery for the naturally hyperconfident employee you met through the grapevine, who costs you millions, and as often as not, irreparably damages the company.

>Leaders are necessary.

Sure, where would be biological lifeforms today if hadn’t been driven by some visionary leaders. Ooops? But I mean, now that humanity provide great leaders, biosphere is thriving like never before. Reooops?