No, I don't think we could ever have "fixed" hiring at companies with enough scale to be lighthouse customers for a business like Starfighter, which was I think a conclusion all 3 of us simultaneously landed on. The engineering team has to be committed to doing things that way. For instance: prior to Starfighter, I hadn't had the misfortune of working in a "leveled" engineering team (I'd worked at big tech companies before, but "levels.fyi"-style leveling, which is universal now, wasn't a thing back when I was still working at bigcos). Work-sample hiring doesn't just impact how you make yes/no decisions on candidates, but also how you level them.
If I was going to do it over again --- and, again, I wouldn't, because I feel like I also learned this just isn't a great business to be in --- I would have done something much closer to "Stack Exchange, but for CTFs". Run a couple of pure investment years, build up a base of users and some public profile, and then do lightweight recruiting stuff (probably just curated job ads for awhile) on top of that.
If I was going to do it over again --- and, again, I wouldn't, because I feel like I also learned this just isn't a great business to be in --- I would have done something much closer to "Stack Exchange, but for CTFs". Run a couple of pure investment years, build up a base of users and some public profile, and then do lightweight recruiting stuff (probably just curated job ads for awhile) on top of that.