The Myth of the Interchangeable Programmer: Can’t We Just Offshore Him?

Neat to see these sotfware-production formulas spelled out so succinctly:

Over my years of watching software projects, I have identified two mathematical formulas that guide much of the industry. These formulas are:

Software Produced = Number of Workers x Hours Worked.

And:

Cost of Software = Number of Workers x Hours Worked x Hourly Cost Per Worker.

I call these the “Software Management Formulas” or SMFs. Understanding these formulas makes much of the absurdity in the industry understandable.

I've worked at more than one company where this is how things got done.  Or "got done," I should say.  It wasn't until I started working with a small group of programmers, all working remotely, that I understood what was wrong at these companies.*  Often the result of the "throw a body at it" approach is that your star programmers will end up going through the code and rewriting large portions of it anyway.  Why not just start off with a small group of good programmers in the first place?