Sastri's talented multitudes reside on the servers of HelloBrain.com, an "intellectual capital exchange" in Santa Clara, California, where high-tech companies post engineering projects and freelance engineers around the world bid on the work.

FORBES: Hello brain. Good-bye rules.

"Even if you did identify the 50 or 100 people who did year-2000 work, you need to devote a significant chunk of money until it becomes exorbitantly expensive, " says Jeanne Koch, a systems manager in the systems and engineering department at The Washington Post, in Washington.

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In the typical production supply chain for consumer products, of which apparel production is a good example, the higher-value, pre-manufacturing activities like designing, engineering, and branding, and post-manufacturing activities like marketing, warehousing, transporting, and retailing happen in the United States, while the mostly lower-end manufacturing and assembly activities take place abroad.

CNN: Why NOT make Olympic uniforms in China?