I am surprised how many people completely ignore this. I see tons of people blog on and on about the bright eyed, bushy tailed genius programmer out there who

I am surprised how many people completely ignore this. I see tons of people blog on and on about the bright eyed, bushy tailed genius programmer out there who needs to be acquired. I see very few about companies actually trying to make an effort to look into their organizations and seeing how they can, if not try to bring their "C" players to par, at least bring their "B" players to "A" level[1]. Although I don't have any experience training other people (apart from improving myself), I am not especially convinced that software engineering and programming skills are hard enough or impossible that relatively smart people can't be with proper coaching be helped to excel at it [2]. Caveats: [1] Implicit assumption that the person is actually interested in becoming better. [2] I understand that this takes a "toll" in productivity because you could be out there building stuff instead of helping these people improve. However, once a company reaches a certain size, I should think there is enough "boring" work for the company to staff "B" players to handle those, while simultaneously making them spend another chunk of their time working on becoming better.