FAQ

Why do seed founders reject candidates with deep‑learning expertise?
Because the hiring committee’s judgment is that expertise is irrelevant when the candidate cannot deliver a working demo within the startup’s 90‑day runway; the debrief from Voyager AI shows a 4‑No vote when the candidate’s answer ignored hardware limits.

Can I negotiate a higher equity stake as a former Meta engineer?
No, the judgment from multiple seed‑stage debriefs is that a request above the 0.1 % cap triggers a “No Hire” irrespective of prior salary; the CFO’s note in the Voyager AI debrief explicitly called the request a “red flag.”

What should I emphasize in a product‑sense interview for a founding role?
Emphasize timelines and deliverable milestones; the founding‑fit matrix assigns a 7‑point weight to product sense, and the debrief from the Voyager interview shows that a candidate who prioritized model compression over a demo was rejected despite strong algorithmic depth.

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