It is probably just me and my overly pessimistic and cynical point of view, but sometimes I think this "war for talent" is basically synonym for "search for very good engineers willing to work 70 hours a week for less than 100K" (or something like that). I do understand the need to for these creative idea (good setup, etc.), but unfortunately these tweks and ideas work only and only after salary is good, challenge is there, and team is great.

And there is one more problem: some of startups struggling to hire very good engineers are not aiming big - the prevalent business model is: we hope to be acquired by Google/Apple/Facebook/Intuit etc. Stories of Digg, Reddit, and Delicous don't inspire a lot confidence for engineers to join these companies.