I have long suspected that for software developers, not bakers, you could hire off the street after a very brief interview and then do a combination of training and auditioning for the work. My belief is this would be both cheaper and more effective than all the money spent in the traditional process. The one caveat is that teams would have to be willing to work at 2 or 3 times their optimal size until the culling was done.

This is an experiment that really needs to be done. Google and the rest of the gang are beating the living hell out of "tell me everybody else you know that's cool" -- there's got to be some opportunities at the other end of the spectrum.