For the last few weeks, I have been trying to unravel the connection between the value of talent and open-source. Inevitably, some products have a high level of importance but few people who truly understand it. This creates high demand with low supply, increasing the value of those people. But that isn't special to open-source; it is true for any product with high demand + low supply. These just happen to be open-source.

It has long been known, at least among experienced technologists, that the best people are worth ten times the "just" really good ones. I rarely see numbers to support this contention - which is somewhat surprising for someone as data-hungry and -driven as I - but I have known it since my earliest days in the technology business. The best people are the best because they absorb more, see more, are more creative, and can put these together to grasp the future and deliver results in a way that most others simply cannot.