[cmos]

The hiring process is definitely unique.. we often ended up with people who would instead make quirky lifestyle stipulations that were more important to them than money or security. Like being able to work from noon until whenever. Or not wearing shoes, ever. Or bringing their dogs to work.

Oddly enough, because we started in a falling apart mansion the fact that we had a full kitchen and a washer and dryer was enough to convince a bunch of people.

"You mean I can do laundry at work?"

"yep"

"wow!"

[moe]

Well, unfortunately the population of dog-loving barefeet coders does not entirely overlap with the population of rockstar programmers. But nonetheless our main criterions remain quality of code and ability to communicate in a meaningful way (asynchronously if their sleep-cycle requires it).

If someone can deliver both of that then, frankly, he may run around naked all day as far as I am concerned. I have no reason to discriminate dog-loving nudists, as long as that doesn't negatively affect their contribution to our business objectives.

[cmos]

Entirely correct. We did not get the best people. It probably cost us more money in the long run. But we were able to ship the product and survive.

It can take years and years to find an amazing team of programmers that's a good fit. After 12 years we have, but in the beginning we just had to ship and get paid.