I have literally talked to hundreds of potential cofounders in the past year, some with awesome skill sets, some with access to millions in funding, and some who were wizards with social.

None of that stuff matters guys! at least not as a first filter for finding a cofounder. What matters to a new startup more than anything else is energy/chemistry, working with someone you like a little bit is almost guaranteed to kill your startup. The first big issue you have, one of you will give up or you will kill each other.

That's not even the issue; do you really want to go to war for 5 or 10 years with someone you don't like? Did we actually quit our job and went through the hellish jungle to be stuck with someone we can barely tolerate. Early stage requires communication of a deeper level that its actually no unusual for a founder to trust his business partner more than his life partner! It just doesn't work without that communication, most of the mistakes we do in startups are directly linked to failure in communication not a lack of knowledge or skill. Want examples?

What should we filter for instead? Not what you think you would want in a cofounder, and definably not by looking at their CV/LinkedIn/YCprofile Look for the values of the cofounders you vibed with before. Just track your old convos on whatsapp/discord/slack and give it to claude.

Someone who plays the same video game as you or someone you share key values as you might be better for the 0-1 phase than a genius coder who is very hard to communicate with, or a genius social media marketer with an obnoxious personality.