This essay examines what makes great programmers (hackers) productive and how companies can attract them. The author argues that the best programmers are driven by interesting problems and good tools rather than money, and that variation in programmer productivity can be enormous—sometimes 10 to 100 times higher than average. To attract and retain great hackers, companies need to provide proper working conditions (like offices with doors instead of cubicles), use good development tools, offer intellectually challenging projects, and surround them with other talented programmers.

• •Variation in wealth can indicate variation in productivity, which is generally positive for society and becomes more pronounced as technology advances
• •Great programmers can be 10 to 100 times more productive than average ones, yet they typically get paid only about three times as much because they care more about interesting work than money
• •The best hackers prefer good tools (like Python over Java), open source software, offices with doors instead of cubicles, and working with other talented programmers
• •Great hackers tend to cluster together in certain locations and companies, creating a 'winner take all' dynamic where the best environments attract disproportionately more talent
• •The key qualities of great hackers include loving to program, extreme curiosity about how things work, ability to concentrate deeply, and often political incorrectness in questioning assumptions

Fred Brooks, Thomas Edison, IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Google, ITA, Xerox Parc, Steve Jobs, Robert Morris, Trevor Blackwell, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Alan Kay, Bill Bradley, John McPhee, Einstein, Netscape, Thinking Machines, Sun, Apple, Orbitz