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While the article correctly highlights the lack of rigorous scientific studies on 10x engineers, it also generalizes a bit too much from anecdote to make the argument that they are mythical creatures. A more reasonable argument is that the hypothetical existence of 10x engineers explains little about the productivity of most organizations. Personally, in the couple decades I have been in this business working in coun…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being 10X for a short duration is much easier than maintaining 10X over years. And also, are these people successful in terms of personal fitness and health? Is their home clean? Do they have good relationships with their family and friends? Do they spend time socializing, or do they spend all their time working? If being 10X is true, why haven't they figured out how to get rich yet?
If you're 10x, I don't think you're thinking about making money.
John Carmack was 10x.
at building video game engines. Do you think he'd be 10X at building CRUD application after CRUD application?
While the article correctly highlights the lack of rigorous scientific studies on 10x engineers, it also generalizes a bit too much from anecdote to make the argument that they are mythical creatures. A more reasonable argument is that the hypothetical existence of 10x engineers explains little about the productivity of most organizations. Personally, in the couple decades I have been in this business working in coun…
While the article correctly highlights the lack of rigorous scientific studies on 10x engineers, it also generalizes a bit too much from anecdote to make the argument that they are mythical creatures. A more reasonable argument is that the hypothetical existence of 10x engineers explains little about the productivity of most organizations. Personally, in the couple decades I have been in this business working in coun…
While the article correctly highlights the lack of rigorous scientific studies on 10x engineers, it also generalizes a bit too much from anecdote to make the argument that they are mythical creatures. A more reasonable argument is that the hypothetical existence of 10x engineers explains little about the productivity of most organizations. Personally, in the couple decades I have been in this business working in coun…
What would help is a reasonable study of them. Upon identifying these 10X'ers, does anyone analyze/interview them, their coworkers and managers? Dissect their team dynamics, like we analyze sports teams?
Can we empower people to become 10X'ers? Maybe it's not the 10X'ers themselves, but the happy co-incidence of person and institution? Do these 10X'ers merely thrive where others are miserable, like they enjoy boss-subordination or talk so much that others get bored, so they look great in relative terms? Does their job mandate Java, and they secretly use a high-level compiler which outputs readable Java? (I know someone who did this; seemed anal about indentation.) Do they initiate projects, and others basically maintain their quick 'n dirty designs?
This article isn't denying the possibility of isolating 10X engineers. Merely that the usual mental framework, which includes the "10X engineer" concept, has problems. Consider pre-Galilean frameworks which said everything comes to rest. Galileo's framework of frictionless surfaces seems absurd; when's the last time you touched a frictionless surface? In this sense, the old explanations seem more applicable to reality. Yet counter-intuitively, denying reality helped us discover more useful models. Do we necessarily want models which focus so much on 10X individuals, when that's not an ultimate goal?