With Trilogy still in start-up mode, and Microsoft ratcheting up the competition for talent, Liemandt made a decision about hiring that might have been the single biggest bet of his entire career. He wagered that talented, overachieving students with zero real-world experience - that is, people like him - would be the key to Trilogy's success. As a result of this decision, the vast majority of Trilogy's hires were new graduates [...] "We're elite talent. It's potential and talent, not experience, that has merit." With Liemandt's believing passionately that success could only flow from a meritoratic hiring process, "only the best" became the shorthand with which Trilogians described themselves and hte candidates they were looking for. [...]