It looks like Google is one company for whom the dot-com bubble never burst. Unfortunately, they're in a pretty unusual situation. What works for them is not necessary going to work for most companies. Just because we're all IT folks doesn't mean we work for Sili Valley start-ups. (And just because we all program in Perl doesn't mean we're IT folks. And just because we're reading this doesn't mean we're Perl programmers. ;-)

Google has a business model for web services that works. That's great. Most companies aren't web services companies, and of those that are, most don't have Google's business model. In short, the economics and market forces are not comparable to Google's. Company profiles are very different. Some companies are huge, multinational. So with regard to

All hiring at the company level, not the project level.

some folks (like me) are going to find it risible.

No offense, but I also find this ridiculous:

• Get the right people.
• Make them happy so they don't want to leave.
• Turn them loose.

That formula only works by a very careful definition of "right". The "right" people are the ones who already perfectly understand the problem space and all the applicable technologies (or can learn them in time to get started on the project with plenty of time left to complete it on schedule). If we were not talking about this in the context of hiring, I'd grant that "right" people are grown in house. For example: management. Is the "right" manager someone you should expect to have to hire, or is it someone who has come up through the ranks of your organization and understands it inside and out? Your IT business is no different. In short: retaining is an antecedent to having the "right people". Of course, you could say that the right people to hire are the ones who will be the right people to have in ten years' time. Like I said, it's all in how you define "right".