Getting started for the long haul...

I've worked in everything from startups to multi-billion dollar companies plying my trade as a software engineer (head geek, architect, tester, developer, business analyst, janitor, etc).  There seems to be 2 defining characteristics that define successful ventures and flailing ventures.  One is the individual doing the work and the other is documentation.

How do you go about picking someone to work for you?  Is it a gut feeling or is it an in depth interview process.  It's always a bonus when you find that rock star out of that mound of applicants.  But how do you define rock star in a rapidly evolving industry?  Read Write Web has an interesting article on the top 10 traits of a rock star software engineer. 

Now that you have your rock star how do you get the most from them?  If your shop is like 80% of the shops I've worked in over the last 20 years, documentation is still on the To Do list, the last guy never finished it before he left or plain not available.  There is nothing like working on a mature system with a database that has nearly 1,000 tables and 5,000 stored procedures.  The UI is running strong at 1,500 pages, 250 reports and a change in direction for the underlying framework - not once but 5 times so far.  I just read an article on Found/Read titled 10 Reasons Why Documentation is a Startup Secret Sauce.  Believe me, not having the documentation extends my time on the order of 10 or 20 times when it comes to large systems.