Ripped directly from a rejection letter I received:

"I think instead of making a more detailed offer, I should consider certain facts.

For starters, you have a family and that'll be the driving force behind all your decisions. Secondly, you will not be able to be here in the program with me. Ideally, I want someone who could be here though not necessary. More importantly, it's the family situation I consider. I've worked developers before with family and the company died largely because of that. I don't want to say that'll happen but I worry.

This other candidate is like me. No responsibilities except {COMPANY NAME}. That makes life less complicated. Based on this - nothing to do with skills - it's best that him and I work together. "

The program was one of the startup accelerators (not YC). He was right that my family would have been the driving force behind all my decisions. He was wrong in thinking that's a bad thing. I can't imagine a bigger motivator than my family. When you have kids, failure just isn't an option.

You received a rejection letter that basically lists illegal reasons (in most states I'm aware of) for rejecting you. You were lucky not to get that job, as the boss is clueless about the legal responsibilities of hiring supervisors. You have a basis for a lawsuit there, if you need the money or want to make a point. If you are not litigious (I am not litigious either, so I respect anyone's decision to decline to exercise legal rights), you at least there have tangible evidence that there is some better employer in the world whom you would be better off working for. Good luck in your career. Good on you to think about your family responsibilities while participating in the competitive world of work.

Well, at least the supervisor was honest. If they were legal savvy, they still would have rejected him, but would have used something more vague and icky. The fact is that age/status discrimination is still a thing in the United States, and why many of us most go work for BigCorps (who are savvy also, but less so) rather than startups or small companies.

I thought about legal recourse but ultimately rejected the idea. I liked the founder, the company, and the accelerator. I didn't want to potentially ruin his dream and muddle his business with a lawsuit. After all, what investor would want to invest in a company that was being sued for discriminatory practices? In any case, he wasn't malicious - just ignorant. I suppose I should have done one better and helped to educate him to what he had done wrong. Instead I just wished him and his company the best of luck.

Assuming that having a clue about legal responsibilities of hiring supervisors is the most important skill of a boss :-)

I think it is good if somebody is honest. And his reasoning actually seems sound.

What exactly about it seems reasonable? He's making assumptions about my dedication based on the fact that I have a family. From that alone he really has no idea how many hours I would be willing to put in, how dedicated I'd be to the business, or how hard I'd hustle for him.

The only thing that seemed reasonable to me was wanting to work with someone that could physically be there with him at the program. If that were the sole reason for going with someone else over me I'd have understood perfectly. Instead he's basing his decision on weak anecdotal evidence. He worked with one other family guy that wasn't as dedicated to the business as he himself was and he came to the conclusion that the family part was what was holding him back from being a better partner. That doesn't strike me as sound reasoning at all.

I was thinking mostly about the remote vs local aspect. You are right that speculating on your motivation seems misguided. Although perhaps it's also not totally far fetched to assume that somebody with a family would want to spend some time with said family.

Oh yeah, definitely. I went deep into interviews with a big oil company, and when it came time to sit down with the Sr. managers, they did not like my philosophy on overtime at all (I have a family I like to see on the weekdays... Overtime is sometimes necessary, but if it's SOP then there's a problem).