This reminds me of something I was pondering today. As we know, talent drain can be a big problem for technology companies. The programmers in the original team

This reminds me of something I was pondering today. As we know, talent drain can be a big problem for technology companies. The programmers in the original team leave, after the IPO maybe, and eventually things just aint what they were. How to solve this? Well, in general terms, give the programmers a long-term investment in the company. But that happens already, right? Stay-on bonuses in the form of stock in the company. People still leave. What about a rather different type of investment... How about, you get the person who's leaving to recruit their replacement, and then you give the leaver some sort of derivitive based on the replacement's performance (or the company's performance thereafter). They'll be motivated to find someone who can genuinely do the job, and to coach them. I got the idea thinking about soccer contracts. Sometimes clubs put in a 'sell-on' clause so the NEXT time the player moves, the original club gets a slice of the transfer fee. Just different ways of handling transfers and contracts basically. Imagine a transfer market for developers.