Greetings and salutations :)

I think you'll get more (and better) answers if you asking a few targetted questions at a time, instead of a "teach me everything you know, thanks, bye" flood.

There's really only one question, it's the first line of the post - "How do you hire the best people?" Now, that's a very broad question so I tried to elaborate by throwing out a large number of sub-questions. These were not meant to be answered individually, rather they were placed there to further display my train of thought and a very little bit of the complexity of the question.

of those, I'm hard-pressed to find one whose answer isn't "it depends

Virtually every question can only be answered with "it depends." The level of detail required to give a definitive answer to a question almost makes such a question not worth asking. By the time you've formulated the question, you will have had the answer! My question was left open-ended to encourage discussion. How do you attract potential employees? What have you found to be the most effective method of measuring their abilities? The more specific the questions, the more they get blinded by the details. Soon the question turns into one of those "what's a good interview questions" of which the answer is "none of the ones posted here anymore."

instead of a "teach me everything you know, thanks, bye" flood.

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