Joel Spolsky's argument for going all out and treating their devs well is that interesting work and good pay might get them the top 1% devs, but adding a nice w

Joel Spolsky's argument for going all out and treating their devs well is that interesting work and good pay might get them the top 1% devs, but adding a nice workplace gives them access to the top 0.1%. It is, of course, an optimization that can only really be applied once you've got "interesting work" and "competitive pay" locked down.