Perhaps this is a non sequitur, but I've been writing Django & HTMX as well as using LLMs to the end of creating an automated circuit board factory. Previously, I co-founded a company that went public in the space. If you think any of the "best engineers, those that I respected the most" might be interested in working together with me, please send them my way - I'm hiring.
jeff+hn AT nimbleprecision DOT com
To your point, I can't make any promises that folks will be able to work at the company forever, but I can say that the ambition is to build a company for the long term and I do think there's a lot of value in having a long tenured engineering team insofar as the context folks build up for the problem set, the code base, and the team can be immense.
I also found this presentation/discussion with Chuck Spinney, one of Boyd's collaborators, to be a helpful elaboration of the concept - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdK4y6O-llE (the meetup also has a couple of other similar videos with Chuck Spinney and Chet Richards, another of Boyd's collaborators who focused on applying Boyd's ideas to business)
I've been enjoying this video series with interviews of Boyd's surviving collaborators as a way to separate out what he meant from what folks often misunderstand:
Many (but not all) of the folks who go on the tours are design engineers who are potential customers for the factories. It's a win-win: the factories get a bunch of potential leads and the "tourists" get learn about manufacturing. One of the big tragedies of many hardware startups is that while many are talented when it comes to design, there are few who really know manufacturing. The goal of the group(s) is try to narrow the gap.
[shamelessplug]
I run a factory tours meetup group in the Bay Area. We've been to machine shops, injection molders, foundries (metal not semiconductor), among others:
http://www.meetup.com/Bay-Area-Factory-Tours/
We help electrical engineers at businesses get to market faster. We do this by offering a desktop electronics rapid prototyping robot (think business grade electronics 3D printer).
We’re looking to bring on our second full time engineer to help develop the robot’s software. The software spans from low level control systems, to CAD parsers, to the front end user interface. A good candidate is clever, adaptable, and flexible.
Who we’re looking for
* Flexible generalists with a strong math and science background
* Makers
* Interest in manufacturing technology
* Strong C/C++/Python/Linux experience
* Experience building consumer or physical products
* Familiarity with or interest in these tools a big plus: Robot Operating System (ROS), OpenCV, Point Cloud Library (PCL), Numpy/Scipy/PySerial/Pandas/Kivy, Open Graphics Rendering Engine (OGRE), D3/WebGL, MongoDB, Eagle/Altium/KiCad general EE CAD, Bottle/Flask, Meteor
jeff+hn AT nimbleprecision DOT com
To your point, I can't make any promises that folks will be able to work at the company forever, but I can say that the ambition is to build a company for the long term and I do think there's a lot of value in having a long tenured engineering team insofar as the context folks build up for the problem set, the code base, and the team can be immense.