Ed would be rejected by most hiring processes. Human or automated.
He's one of the most impressive people I know, but no keyword filter knows what to do with his background.
Top maths degree at Oxford. CompSci Masters at Imperial. ML engineer at one of the UK's top fintechs. Consultant mathematician (!). Then founder of Hoxton Farms. £30M raised from Founders Fund & others, cutting-edge research, a multidisciplinary team of 50.
There's no req for "ML eng turned mathematician turned biotech founder." Most screening software (and unfortunately most human screeners) would pass on him. Not because Ed is weak, but because he doesn't neatly fit into the box of what people are looking for.
I think about startup hiring the way a VC thinks about investing, not the way a bank thinks about lending.
Downside is capped - worst case, they don't make probation. Upside is uncapped - the right early hire is the difference between a good company and a generational one.
And AI is collapsing the value of knowing the playbook. First-principles thinking, ownership, and range now beat running the same motion for the sixth time.
So we hired Ed. And he's been upside since day one.