The Dinner Table Test
Do you want to spend 3 hours with this person?
I’ve always struggled to answer the question of “what type of people do you accept for membership at Maxwell.” It’s a question setup to make us look like assholes. If you say anything remotely complimentary (they’re all super ambitious!) you seem like an elitist who doesn’t want to hang out with anyone who doesn’t meet your “standards.”
It’s also a genuinely hard question to answer — try to do it for yourself: in a sentence or two describe your friend group? Difficult, right? I’m friends with people for a variety of reasons ranging from shared ambition, shared experience (college), shared world view/sense of humor. Why you like someone can be hard to put into words.
But we’ve found one question works well as a starting point: do you want to spend 3 hours at the dinner table with this person?