There is nothing new about companies wanting to secure the best talent. The East India Company, founded in 1600, used competitive examinations to recruit alpha minds. The company's employees included James and John Stuart Mill, two of Britain's greatest intellectuals, and Thomas Love Peacock, one of its wittier writers. General Electric (GE) carefully ranks its employees, with the best groomed for leading positions and the weakest eased out. In the mid-1950s it launched its corporate university at Cro-tonville near New York, often dubbed Har-vard-on-the-Hudson. Jack Welch, the company's legendary boss, spent half his time on "people development" and visited Cro-tonville every two weeks. As for investment banks and consultancies, they have to be obsessive about talent: what else are they selling?
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