I feel like I agree with your aversion to the "hang out test" because it's just wrong to do that, but I also know that for me personally, work is far more motivating when I'm friends with my coworkers. Especially when travel is involved.
I can't be the only one who feels this way, so it would be hard not to factor this in when hiring, especially with a small startup.
Do you really think that the added motivation from working with "friends" is insignificant?
I agree, I "like liking" my coworkers too. I guess I'd just encourage hiring managers to consider that:
(a) it's hard to predict who people are going to be friends with; we have 9-5 people with kids, 20- somethings that live in the hipster hotspots, board game geeks, people who drink beer, people who hate beer, people who don't drink at all, and a variety of ages, and everyone seems to get along and enjoy having lunch together.
(b) monocultures are risky in social environments too; for instance, they become incestuous and breed drama; one team member leaves in a huff and your whole team's morale can get seriously screwed up.
(c) if you're getting a company culture by literally hiring everyone's friends, that team is going to be hard to manage top-down. If you don't have a top-down management culture, that might be fine. But a lot of companies that think they're not top down really are; most companies are managed top-down.
