From first contact to hire, I think we're probably vastly more efficient with candidates' time than most companies. It's exceedingly rare to get as good of glimpse into what you'd be doing at a given job as you see from one of our sample projects. People who aren't great fits (either for desire or skill level reasons) can decide that very quickly. AND if they take it on, it's entirely on their own schedule, no coordination shenanigans.

From there, we do roughly what you'd do if you flew to a company for an interview (or drove, I guess). Rather than running someone through 3-5 different people, we organize it more as a full day project with the appropriate people around.

For most people, I suspect we spend more time pitching the value of the company than we do getting them to do work for us.

It's sustainable, provided companies act like us. :D We do a lot to explain what's going to happen, what we think makes people successful in our org, etc. My guess is most people who apply and make it through the process aren't out talking to 10-20 companies, they're specifically interested in companies like ours.

Based on feedback we've gotten from candidates, even people we passed on, the process is much more relaxing than what they're used to. We've had it called "more human", which is a little ridiculous, but based on how awful most hiring setups are it makes sense. Getting a job sucks and we really want our process to minimize the awfulness.

Anyone who could not only criticize but also resist straight up killing for the opportunity to work with the only and only grayfox is an anomaly. Either you are incredibly unaware, or on the next level of talented to not recognize this. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the latter, in which case, stop posting on HN, and start writing books. People need to hear your wisdom.