Another great post from Joel Spolsky of www.joelonsoftware.com. This time he is trying to quantify the dramatic difference in productivity and creativity a truly exceptional programmer can have versus your run of the mill “I write code just to pay the bills” mediocre programmer.
Well worth a read.
I only know of a couple of companies that seem to have been founded on the premise that Joel states at the beginning of the article. One is Fog Creek Software (Joel’s company) and the other is ThoughtWorks (where the great Martin Fowler currently hangs his hat). They have blogs over at ThoughtWorks too, definitely worth checking out.
I would love to hear about other companies founded with these ideas in mind. If you know of any others, post a comment. It is nice to see companies succeed based on the main idea of creating an enjoyable environment for their workers.