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I would hire someone who didn't code in their spare time, but I definitely wouldn't hire Teddy boy. Who would want that kind of publicity-addicted blowhard polluting their team?

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On a somewhat related point, I think the best advantage of hiring people who code in their free time is that none of them will try to take your job as long as they can use their favourite editor. Think of that as the early Steve Job strategy ;)

PR talent is important.

Judging by the post he has more of an anti-PR talent.

Yet we all know who he is.

Fame and Infamy have subtle differences.

This can also backfire. I have a friend who hired a very well known developer to work on their startup in large part for PR reasons. The product had already been developed and was doing well, but he wanted to expand his team and gain more mindshare in the developer community.

Long story short, when things went south, this "A-list blogger" took all the credit for the companies success, and made a big stink about it, airing his dirty laundry in public, which was all anyone ever heard about it because he had a legion of screaming fanboys to spread the dirt even though not one of them had the slightest clue what really happened.

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