From Credentials to Credibility: Introducing MeritFirst

Meritocracy is the basis of the American Dream, but in practice, it’s much easier for employers to spot prestige than proficiency. At 8VC, we owe our track record to an obsession with top talent, built at Palantir, Addepar, and others, and honed by backing hundreds more.  While we constantly strive to elevate our talent game, it’s always been an inexact science—necessitating ambitious new hiring infrastructure for our portfolio and beyond. That’s why we’re building MeritFirst with Sam Lessin and Zack Ganieany, and helping a fast-growing community of leading companies systematically and dynamically assess real-world chops.

Hiring, especially in “knowledge” industries, too often filters on pedigree. For employers, the mistakes are compounding: reliance on outdated proxies skews top-of-funnel; flawed interview loops generate poor signal; subpar employees who “look the part” corrode organizations. The candidate experience is similarly painful: black box hiring processes, AI-generated resumes colliding with AI screening, and few chances to prove their worth. More companies are recognizing the credential trap, but finding exceptional people who don’t fit the mold still depends largely on chance or personal connections. Meanwhile, macro forces have intensified: ruthless competition for talent, overhiring/layoff whiplash, and rising policy and fairness pressures.

The irony is that the “safe” hire is not so safe after all, because this mindset rigorously QAs credentials, while ability is tested in production. The conventional approach is extremely time-consuming, and outsources talent evaluation to weak, indirect signals. But building the right team underpins everything else. Companies need to solve for the ability to do excellent work, and stop living in ATS and phone screens. It’s time for a return to first principles. 

MeritFirst fundamentally refocuses hiring through auditable, high-fidelity, job-specific assessments. This is now possible because LLMs allow for scalable, structured test design, evaluation, and continuous learning. The details, however, matter immensely. Getting it right will do candidates and companies a massive service, while advancing meritocracy and opportunity for all. Getting it wrong risks perpetuating hiring pitfalls under an illusion of objectivity. It’s not enough to make hiring more efficient—each design element must be intricately mapped to what really matters.

MeritFirst’s capability graph is a new primitive for the meritocracy revolution: role-specific, scenario-based work samples that measure planning, problem solving, learning agility, and execution, alongside specialized skillsets. These samples are enhanced with objective scoring rubrics and validity telemetry to inform the humans who will remain the crux of each hiring decision.

Network effects are essential to upending legacy approaches, and MeritFirst is positioned to create a powerful flywheel: companies attract more candidates; candidates attract more companies; the resulting feedback loop drives better outcomes and faster iteration. Each task performed adds calibration data and predictive validity.

The benefits are extensive. Hiring managers can review candidate shortlists asynchronously, based on demonstrated ability, while recruiters can increase throughput and quality, and focus on high-value passive candidates. For candidates, especially less traditional ones, the value begins with a fair shot, and persists through a portable performance profile, packaged in a substantially more enjoyable, personalized, and transparent experience. Ultimately, entire industries will benefit from a workforce defined by competence, not branding.

Today, MeritFirst announced $6mm in seed funding, co-led by 8VC and Slow Ventures, with participation from Guillermo Rauch. This round builds on a groundswell of enthusiasm from early participants, and will support an ambitious product and distribution roadmap.

MeritFirst is already deployed at a wide variety of customers for a cross-section of roles: HelloPatient (across all functions), OffDeal (investment bankers), Meadow Memorials (sales; G&A), and Avila VC (Chief of Staff), to name a few. Feedback has been consistent: companies are hiring candidates that otherwise would have slipped their radar. Longer term, MeritFirst will complement customer growth with deeper simulations, expanded role coverage, mentorship, targeted skill-bridging modules, work trials, and fellowship programs. And as of today, the 2026 8VC Fellowship, now utilizing MeritFirst, is live!

CEO Zack Ganieany’s experience has informed MeritFirst’s mission and methodologies throughout. As a first-generation college student who entered investment banking and private equity from a non-target school, Zack has lived the challenge of getting noticed. As Chief of Staff and VP of Finance at Clipboard Health, he implemented rigorous assessments for hiring, and learned to build teams that are strong in practice, not just on paper. Sam Lessin led product during Facebook’s hypergrowth years, is a renowned seed investor (including the first check into Solana), and has been tirelessly working to return Harvard to its founding principles. Our combined portfolio companies, along with partner workforce organizations and online communities, create immediate distribution channels. 8VC’s Build program, which has developed multiple unicorns, provides a playbook for creating and funding category-creating businesses.

Whether you’re a customer/design partner, or candidate looking to prove your mettle, MeritFirst is open for business. You can also take a test from MeritFirst’s functional series (sales, finance, accounting, etc) as a “common app” for fast-track interest from any participating company. And if you want to build the toolkit of meritocracy, MeritFirst is hiring software engineers.

At 8VC, our charter is to “partner with elite founders to build transformational technologies that create long-term economic and societal value”. More than ever, it’s crucial that “elite” refers to abilities, not appearances, and in MeritFirst, we’ve chosen a mission where economic and societal concerns are not only coequal, but inseparable. Historian James Truslow Adams coined the phrase “American Dream” in his 1931 classic The Epic of America. Almost a century later, we’re proud to partner with Zack, Sam, and anyone committed to the future Adams envisioned: a “social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”