[evgen]

The company was doing some pretty cool stuff and the team/pay/benefits were on the high-end for the valley, so that was not really a problem, it was mostly a lot of competition for a small pool of people worth having.

any good programmer or intern/recent college grad who wishes to become a good programmer should always be willing to learn a new language on the company's tab. If they aren't, that probably says more about them than the language

Would you learn COBOL on the company's tab? I wouldn't waste my time. Right or wrong, the impression that most people under 30 have of perl is that it is crufty write-once-read-never-again code used back when cgi scripts ruled the world; a dead-end skill that won't improve their long-term prospects.

[mock]

If someone has interesting work, and wants to pay me to learn COBOL, then absolutely I will. Actually, I have another startup in the works that probably will require learning COBOL at some point anyway...