It's a counterproductive myth. The way my mentor explained it to me is as follows. There are regularly productive developers then there are people who are not able to be productive. This can be because of a huge number of reasons. It could be because of culture and bureaucracy and bad tooling and bad processes and waterfall and endless yak shaving and high staff turnover due to low pay etc etc. It is really easy to create a software shop where most people are unproductive.
In such environments some small number of people are still productive and get ten times more done than average. Yet what they did would be average in an environment where everyone was motivated and unblocked. These are hailed as ”10x” and rather than fix why everyone else is demotivated and blocked it is easier to blame the people and say that you must hire unicorns. That is why it is a counterproductive myth: as the real solution is to create an environment where everyone can be productive. It is the ”0.1x” environment that is the actual challenge.
Note i am not saying everyone has the same skill or aptitude or ability. What I am talking about is “10k compared to peers” where a peer has similar aptitude and ability. I have had the privilege to have had folks work for me who are stunning smart. Yet its more on “big ideas” and design and communication where that really tells. That stuff makes everyone else in the team more productive. Cranking out code is something regularly productive programmer can be good at and really smart people should (mostly) be cranking out code everyone else can use or maintain. Sure i want to be working with smart and motivated people but they are not “10x” they are just “1x plus smart”.
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
It's a counterproductive myth. The way my mentor explained it to me is as follows. There are regularly productive developers then there are people who are not able to be productive. This can be because of a huge number of reasons. It could be because of culture and bureaucracy and bad tooling and bad processes and waterfall and endless yak shaving and high staff turnover due to low pay etc etc. It is really easy to create a software shop where most people are unproductive.
In such environments some small number of people are still productive and get ten times more done than average. Yet what they did would be average in an environment where everyone was motivated and unblocked. These are hailed as ”10x” and rather than fix why everyone else is demotivated and blocked it is easier to blame the people and say that you must hire unicorns. That is why it is a counterproductive myth: as the real solution is to create an environment where everyone can be productive. It is the ”0.1x” environment that is the actual challenge.
Note i am not saying everyone has the same skill or aptitude or ability. What I am talking about is “10k compared to peers” where a peer has similar aptitude and ability. I have had the privilege to have had folks work for me who are stunning smart. Yet its more on “big ideas” and design and communication where that really tells. That stuff makes everyone else in the team more productive. Cranking out code is something regularly productive programmer can be good at and really smart people should (mostly) be cranking out code everyone else can use or maintain. Sure i want to be working with smart and motivated people but they are not “10x” they are just “1x plus smart”.