Perhaps it's also important to recognize that sometime someone who is the second best, or even just "good" at something, rather than "the best," might actually be a better person for your company. Having worked with people who are at the pinnacle of their field I have noticed 2 trends:
1. Such people tend to be very good at what they do, and largely bad at most other, even related, fields. This is not one of those tired stereotypes of a genius who is bad at social skills. There is a good explanation for this: someone who managed to become one of the best in their field, probably did so through concentration of their knowledge in that field, to the exclusion of others.
2. People who are the best of the best can sometimes overspecialize. You know the old saying, to a hammer, every problem is a nail.
In a small company with a few employees you can not afford to have such a person unless their field of expertise IS the domain within which lies the problem you are trying to solve, and even then, you should be careful. In a large company, you can have more specialists, but be careful as well.
It is also important to realize, as the author of the article pointed out, sometimes good enough will do. You do not need the best iOS dev or the best JS person if all they are doing is creating a front end for you new revolutionary AI engine. You probably want to go for the best AI person you can find, however.
My mother says a specialist is someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know absolutely everything about nothing. Likewise, a generalist knows less and less about more and more until they know absolutely nothing about everything.
This applies to looking for "top experts", and also to "full stack developers".
This is true in a useful sense. The more you know (about anything worth knowing) -- the more you realize you've yet to learn.
The more holes and short-cuts you're (painfully) aware of in tools and libraries everyone use every day, to get stuff done.
To be aware of how artefacts are made, is to be afraid. Be that artefact sausages or firewalls. The trick is to then learn enough to know which sausage to eat: or at least find a level of acceptance that lets you enjoy the stuff that tastes good, even when you know how it's made.
And after lunch, maybe you'll serve a json rest api with php.
I'm a generalist myself. I've become decent at a wide-ranging set of skills - cooking, feminist lit-crit, Arabic drumming, odd things like that. I've become a good but not awesome expert at a few things - configuration management, guitar, and others.
An important exception to this entertaining aphorism is observed in the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition. Becoming an Expert (in the five level Dreyfus model) in something makes it much easier to become Competent or Proficient in other things. This has certainly been my experience, as things I learn in one area apply to learning others.
The result is that people who never commit to expertise in anything struggle to achieve proficiency, or even competence in anything. They're neither generalists nor specialists... they're just trapped.
Very true, like with most things in life, balance is key. Full stack developer who's emphases is X is a grate candidate, assuming X is what you are looking for. Full stack developer who is "great" at everything is probably not so much. My personal attitude in life is to know as much as I care about subjects which are my core competency and are most interesting to me, and know enough about other fields to be able to competently hire an expert in those fields, and be able to spot instances when that expert is bullshitting me.
1. Such people tend to be very good at what they do, and largely bad at most other, even related, fields. This is not one of those tired stereotypes of a genius who is bad at social skills. There is a good explanation for this: someone who managed to become one of the best in their field, probably did so through concentration of their knowledge in that field, to the exclusion of others.
2. People who are the best of the best can sometimes overspecialize. You know the old saying, to a hammer, every problem is a nail.
In a small company with a few employees you can not afford to have such a person unless their field of expertise IS the domain within which lies the problem you are trying to solve, and even then, you should be careful. In a large company, you can have more specialists, but be careful as well.
It is also important to realize, as the author of the article pointed out, sometimes good enough will do. You do not need the best iOS dev or the best JS person if all they are doing is creating a front end for you new revolutionary AI engine. You probably want to go for the best AI person you can find, however.