Organizations allow stars to do their job

Another good article from Joel, this time on how to provide an abstraction layer to Programmers.  But I don’t think this is true for all programmers.  There are star programmers, and there are Drones.  Providing an expensive infrastructure has to make sense financially.

Full Article

Likewise, there are other professions for which the same principles should be applied. Joel names one, famous singers.  Other examples would be Lawyers, Consultants and the like.

To a degree, this applies to every profession that provides its own infrastructure.  It may not apply to the self-employed plummer (and even the plummer hires a Tax accountant).  Just getting the level of abstraction (and therefore the price tag) right, that’s the difference.