2 ms·

That's true to a point. But most companies aren't willing to treat their top talent well enough to keep them. There comes a time when running your own busines

That's true to a point. But most companies aren't willing to treat their top talent well enough to keep them. There comes a time when running your own business is less headache than dealing with a bureaucracy, and they go do that. But again, I said 'most companies'. Some of them have a very clear view of the situation and make sure that talent is happy and unwilling to move to another company, let alone start their own. And I think there are more of those companies all the time. And to be fair to the rest, they probably can't afford it.

lsc 15y ago
My experience has been that top technical talent doesn't want to focus on non-technical things, like finding a new job, or even maximizing their income as an employee, so I think keeping them happy has more to do with how you feed them technical challenges and how much freedom you give them (and how you give them that freedom) and how valued they feel than with how much you pay them. I mean, if you pay them so little that it's a problem, they will deal with that problem, but after that? yeah, I don't think that compensation is as important as you say. My experience has been that the people who really focus on maximizing the money are folks like me; I mean, I'm no idiot, but I'm certainly nowhere near the best of the best technically. And even me, I'll choose freedom over maximizing my short-run income.