I think i have to agree on this article. Lets assume you cant find someone who embodies everything that is discussed in PG's essay + someone who also loves user

I think i have to agree on this article. Lets assume you cant find someone who embodies everything that is discussed in PG's essay + someone who also loves users and cares deeply about their needs and solving their problems (which would be a god send if you found that individual to work for you). if you need to make a choice on hiring (and it was apparent when conducting the interview, who the great hacker was and who the profressional was) i think it would be a better idea to hire the professional. By professional i mean someone who does their job. I have a couple of mates who are good hackers, they write the code, stay back if something doesnt work and do weekend work if there is a release. They hate satying back of course and wouldnt dream of coding at home for fun but they do the job and the code gets released and well it works ... If the company is new and ground rules are not yet established this could be an exception and a good time to bring in the great hackers. They can set out the ground rules, the standards and can direct the way the technology flows, however in an established company where some of the work is outsourced to india or ibm or some other company and strict processes are in place to getting certain peices of work done asking a great hacker to follow up on an infrastructure change, or a module release would be comparible to sticking a pin in ones eye because in his mind it would be, "why am i asking for this when i can do it myself" then the complaining would start to surface, or worse still he would quit and leave alot of the cleverly written code half finished for someone else not half his calibre to continue with). On the other hand the professional would simply say .. hmm whatever, i will do what i need to do when they finish and will follow up again in an hour without to much of a fuss, then go on with another peice of work. They come to work everyday, do the job, go home and again come back and do it again for the next 10 or so years. This of course isnt the most efficent way cause the great hacker has a much better way of doing it but hey its how alot of companies work and i guess for the sake of the great hacker and the sake of the company having the great hacker on the team could be more trouble and headace then its worth.