Recently, we posted an article on How to identify a rock star developer, and that’s all fine and dandy, but then, why would a company such as Google, that has always bragged about having the best and brightest people working for them have to announce a 10% raise to the whole company plus additional benefits and bonuses?

These are some of the facts. Google has always been known for spending huge amounts of money on salaries so they can get “rock stars” working for them, and it’s no secret that as of late, they are loosing more and more of that talent to other and maybe newer companies like Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter.

In fact, according to some news sites, some key engineers and developers are even turning down counter offers made by Google so they can stay with the company and not accept deals made by some of the new “competitors”.

But why are they leaving? Is it just the money or are we missing something?

Well, sure money always helps turn the tables, but there are a few other factors that I think, need to be considered.

First of all, when Google started their hiring spree, they went for the best guys they could find and back then it was a fairly young company… even the CEO was a kid. But now some of these “gifted young men and women” are not in their early 20’s looking to make big bucks working at a cool new company.

That been said, at that age, living on a energy drink and junk food diet meant working long hours and not caring much about everything else but making deadlines.

Today things have changed for this generation and priorities with it, they already delivered, hundreds of times, and they want to be able to enjoy the benefits of it, they want to go home to their families and their lives, and for that, there is only so much money can buy.

There’s another aspect that has to be considered, if you are great at what you do, you want to work with others just like you and surround yourself with people that can contribute to your abilities and the other way around. So, if talent is moving to “greener pastures”, then you, as par of this community, might at least consider following your peers. Add some extra money, or a chunk of stock options in the mix, and you have a stampede in the making.

But why people started moving in the first place? Well, think about it, great people, in this case, great programmers and developers, want to innovate or be a part of innovative things, and sure Google was the hottest place to work at not that long ago. But today there are a few “newer” companies and startups that are breaking new ground and coming up with some really cool stuff. This means that if you still have a few awesome lines of code left in you, then it’s pretty clear where you want to spend them on.

Awesome talent, no matter the area in which it comes, is great to have to start a company, and it will do wonders for you with exciting new products and ideas, but it’s impossible to keep for long, and it’s insanely expensive to do so.

My thoughts? Open the barn doors and make room for fresh blood…