Hiring and the Market for Lemons

There is so much to unpack here but I'd start with:

(1) If companies spent 90% of their time thinking about how to use devs when they get them instead of spending 90% on their time thinking about getting devs it would be different

(2) you can't trust celebrity software developers like Spolsky or Atwood or Graham or Hansson. Usually these people are successful at developing and marketing tools for developers or get into VC which involves similar skills. They cultivate being a celebrity as part of the marketing.

That sort of person is certainly successful at developing and marketing a product but I'd say that kind of person doesn't have particularly useful or transferrable information for others who develop and market software. The person whose advice I want to hear is the one who worked for a company like IBM over 30 years in 45 cities in 12 countries managing team who worked on a huge number of projects some of which succeeded and some of which failed.