The only way to stop these large criminal enterprises is to legalize the stuff. Just like alcohol prohibition created some of the most notorious American criminals, South American drug prohibitions produce powerful criminals down there. There isn't any large crime related to South American cocoa or coffee imports. Legalize it and then spend money and make laws regulating consumption, it would greatly reduce the misery in our corner of the world.

Forgive potential ignorance here, but people often quote Joel Spolsky as saying things like: "...the trouble with using a lot of mediocre programmers instead of a couple of good ones is that no matter how long they strive, they will still produce something mediocre."

What really genius-level things has Fog Creek done? I remember demoing FogBugz, and it was marginally better than its competitors, but it was far from a complete game-changer. Trello is ok, but it's only marginally better than a whiteboard with post-it notes. None of these reinvent an industry, or provide something so outstanding that people rush toward it.

Don't get me wrong; I think Joel has a lot of good ideas in general, and Stack Exchange is indeed a game-changer. But as someone who continually talks about hiring "rock star programmers", I simply don't see a result that I'd consider "rock star" equivalent. But, maybe I'm missing something?

Edit: More than that, I don't even consider myself a rock star developer, just a normal developer who loves learning new things and getting a lot of stuff done. I'd be thrilled to work for a Google or Microsoft, but what would attract "rock star developers" to Fog Creek? Basically, are fancy chairs enough? Isn't the most attractive thing a super interesting problem domain?