Just from what you said, the solution 'seems' very simple: Compensate more. This may mean pay, equity, or being able to work on interesting problems. From my ex

Just from what you said, the solution 'seems' very simple: Compensate more. This may mean pay, equity, or being able to work on interesting problems. From my experience there are many extremely talented programmers in London, and these guys can work anywhere they want, including starting their own company or moving to the US. Also 'coolness' is hard to define, I see many startups think cool is having some beanbags and a pingpong table, whilst working on a standard CRUD RoR app. To most talented engineers, they would much rather be working on interesting technical challenges. This is how hedge funds get them: squeezing a few millis out of an already optimal trading engine by whatever means possible is extremely fun. Same reason game companies, F1 and GCHQ can pay peanuts.