I think this more or less nails it. I'm not a programmer, but I have hired a few in my day. My best hire I've ever made was out of high school, and this kid blew away any developers of any age by 3-5x easily. He now is 15 years along his career (long since moved on - I can't afford him), and working for Google.
He's going to be great when he's 60 years old, because he's great at what he does, passionate, and lives for learning new technology.
The only difference is that yes, he will not be working those crazy hours.
You do have one mistake in your post though. While yes, a single developer who is 5x more productive than another programmer is worth more than 5x as much - for a small team that may not matter as much as you think. As a business owner, I would want to hire you, but I also need another developer who can "keep up" so I have business continuity should you quit/get hit by a bus or something. This is worth a considerable amount and I would not be willing to hire you vs. hiring 3 lesser developers to get the same job done. It would be too much of a risk.
>This is worth a considerable amount and I would not be willing to hire you vs. hiring 3 lesser developers to get the same job done. It would be too much of a risk.
This is a fair point, but consider that having the expert work on it to start with, even if the expert leaves at some point, would mean you have a far more maintainable code base than if you'd started with three junior developers.
Probably the best answer is a compromise: Get the expert to put down the "bones" of the project with the understanding that they would commit to training a (less expensive) project maintainer (or a team of them). EDIT: Also have the expert screen your maintainer(s) so you don't end up with idiots. :)
The value of having good code to start with can't be overstated. There are times when I've come in and told people that they should start from scratch than try to maintain their pile of garbage code created by junior developers.
He's going to be great when he's 60 years old, because he's great at what he does, passionate, and lives for learning new technology.
The only difference is that yes, he will not be working those crazy hours.
You do have one mistake in your post though. While yes, a single developer who is 5x more productive than another programmer is worth more than 5x as much - for a small team that may not matter as much as you think. As a business owner, I would want to hire you, but I also need another developer who can "keep up" so I have business continuity should you quit/get hit by a bus or something. This is worth a considerable amount and I would not be willing to hire you vs. hiring 3 lesser developers to get the same job done. It would be too much of a risk.