Top companies, especially in competitive industries like technology, need to constantly innovate and solve problems better and more efficiently than their competitors. And to do this they need those top 1% because problem solving skills and IQs are not completely stackable - the top 1% can solve problems that no teams of average developers can solve. Most companies need those top 1% if they want to keep up with the lead and not fall behind in the long run.
But this runs right back into Joel's supposition. If only 1% of developers are capable of doing this well enough, then why do we still have a booming software industry?
