First, the standard caveat - I am writing this as my own personal opinion and in no way as a representative of my employer...

Kris asked what qualities I look for in a developer or PM... Personally I think that problem solving skills (not puzzles) is the primary thing I look for. I have a friend that has a great question - "You receive a satalite dish at home (DirectTV), how do you hook it up?"... This isn't a great dev quesiton, but I really like the opened ended and mundane nature of the question.

Do you call someone you know that is an expert? Do you look at other houses to see how they setup their dish? Do you hire someone to install it?

All of these options come up every day when working on a project... make vs. buy decisions... calling up someone else that is a domain expert... etc... People that solve problems are hugely valuable.

The comment that there are "intelligent" people who can't deliver, non-intelligent people who can deliver, and even less intelligent people who can deliver. Having the combination of intellectual horsepower, and drive to deliver, is the mark of a great employee - in any business.

I agree with what was said in Fuji, that today's skills are quickly outdated - I don't care if you know Java, C#, C++, VB, etc. I care that a prospective employe is bright, driven, and passionate. Now, often I would argue that a lack of understanding of the current skills in the industry is a sign that you aren't passionate - however I don't think it is a simple boolean "if you don't know Java you must not care about computing", but rather just one piece of data...