[fecak]

I think the disconnect on this is how one will define celebrity/rock star type developers. I'm sure that ideally they feel they will be the agent to some of the bigger names in the business, who certainly don't need an agent for finding work but might like someone to handle their stuff.

Through my work running a Java users group for 13 years, when I reach out to big name speakers my reply comes from an assistant that handles that person's calendar and scheduling. This could be a service that someone who is speaking worldwide would pay for (as their employer pays for it if they are at Google).

In reality, talent agent's in tech will probably be managing very good coders who are probably not big industry names - and that's ok. They could be very good at coding but not very good at making career choices, negotiating, and the like.

The Vinny Chase reference seems to indicate that you feel that the quality of your engineers doesn't have an impact on the success of your software company. Is that accurate? I think that if you feel the quality of an engineer is not associated with the success of a product, at least to some degree, most of the people here would disagree.

[danenania]

The thing is that "celebrity status" is only loosely correlated with engineering ability. Someone who blogs a lot, is involved with a popular product, or is just very social and charismatic can build up a big following and become a celebrity without necessarily being a great coder. Likewise, a lot of amazing engineers are so amazing precisely because they keep their heads in the code and technical concepts all day, and don't spend time on self promotion. Of course, it's possible for someone to become famous purely through the weight of their achievements, but the I think the typical coder-celebrity has had to work pretty hard to become one.

[fecak]

Agreed, just like you can be a celebrity and not have any skills whatsoever in the entertainment or reality TV world. I think their message isn't necessarily about celebrity status but about the quality of work. It says they've done code reviews and reference checks on the 10x site, so they are saying that they've vetted the talent. My guess is that the types of people represented are probably not what one would consider celebrities, as many can afford their own support staff (assistant, scheduler, accountant, etc.).

As an aside, there is some value to hiring celebrity status folks, regardless of their coding ability (helps with recruiting, name recognition, company status, etc.).