You don’t have competition. You must be doing something different or else you should create an ensemble with “the competition” if you are working towards the exact same impact.

Absolute win, which is what you are describing, is what we know and it is Fiat thinking: I win it all, you lose it all. However, it is not the way to have a broad impact in a world based on contributions.

Nobody can steal other people’s ideas. Somebody else cannot copy you. They take away the stuff that resonated with them, but that is it.

Back to the “offer more money” competition… let’s say that these other people are completely Fiat. All they know is that money works and they offered your candidate more than you. Time and time again, they “win.” It seems to me that those people that went for “more money” would not be aligned with you community. Keep looking until a candidate shows enough interest and curiosity; that is the candidate you want. One who wants to learn.

To make sure… this is a person who knows how to program, right? But she doesn’t know the specific language your team needs, is that it?

And you don’t think that she can learn a new language?

That sounds like bad planning on your part, right?…

… then why not give her a chance to learn the new language. That is going to go a lot faster than learning co-management and co-ownership. Also, your team should explain what they need and she may even know somebody who can mentor her or she can propose another language that would be better suited to their needs.