Greg Stevenson argues that board interviews are decided in the first five minutes, before questions even start. Boards read your demeanor, not your answers: steady hands, comfort with uncertainty, and admitting what you don't know matter far more than having everything figured out.
In the first 5 minutes, a board decides more about you than in the hour that follows. And it is not reading your answer, it is reading you. The half-second before you speak, whether your hands are still, whether you reach for certainty you do not have, or you can sit inside a hard question without flinching. I've sat on boards for years. The candidate who had an answer for everything always worried me, more than the one who could say, I do not know yet, but here is how I'll find out. The top seat is not a test of what you know. It is a test of who you are when you do not know. What is your face doing in the half second before you answer?
