In tech recruiting, playing it safe is risky business

The Silicon Valley version of the American Dream goes something like this: a dishwasher, a bike messenger, an actor, a waiter (insert totally-unrelated-to-technology job title here) leverages his or her hobbyist-level coding skills to land a hot programming job and becomes a "rockstar developer."
And nearly everyone who works in tech, from CEOs, venture capitalists, startup founders, and programmers themselves will tell you they don't care what a candidate's background is; where they went to sch