Good points about roles not being prizes (unless that was the deal, which it sometimes is), but I'll devil's advocate this anyway.
> Your second programmer isn’t going to be as good at is as some guy who has been a director 6 years else where
If you hire smart people who learn, and who believe in the mission and team... that programmer might well be in the running to lead engineering.
Knowing tech industry a bit, I'd be at least as skeptical of directors from outside. Of course I'd have to consider them, at times. But I expect at least half of the outside candidates for leadership roles will be disingenuous halfwits.
Meanwhile, if you've got people who had the grit to help get you to that point, and demonstrated alignment and loyalty when it mattered, and who foster that trust in your company culture, then you'd be an idiot not to try to find a way to get rare goodness like that in your leadership.
> Your second programmer isn’t going to be as good at is as some guy who has been a director 6 years else where
If you hire smart people who learn, and who believe in the mission and team... that programmer might well be in the running to lead engineering.
Knowing tech industry a bit, I'd be at least as skeptical of directors from outside. Of course I'd have to consider them, at times. But I expect at least half of the outside candidates for leadership roles will be disingenuous halfwits.
Meanwhile, if you've got people who had the grit to help get you to that point, and demonstrated alignment and loyalty when it mattered, and who foster that trust in your company culture, then you'd be an idiot not to try to find a way to get rare goodness like that in your leadership.