This article (and all the other web commentary) is silly. In any competent company employees are be valued not by their skills, but by the value they bring to t

This article (and all the other web commentary) is silly. In any competent company employees are be valued not by their skills, but by the value they bring to the table. For all we know this guy is a proven contributor and $3.5m is a bargain. What if this was three years ago, and the person in question was Paul Bucheit? What if by staying, FriendFeed had been a Google property? Would that be worth $3.5 million dollars? What if it was seven years ago, would it be worth Google paying $3.5 to retain the person who would go on to basically invent AdSense? Of course it would. Case closed.