Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe the better programmers have more leverage to negotiate better work conditions, so it isn't a causal effect.
Yes, this is mentioned in the paper, right next to where they talk about the correlation. The most telling part, though, is where they take some of the lower-25% from cubicle farm/open office spaces and put them in private office spaces. Guess what happens?
1. Better programmers are more likely to have negotiating leverage.
2. Taking a poor programmer and moving him to a quieter space improves his productivity.
I'd still like to see a proper modern scientific study comparing office environments. It's very hard to do correctly, because there are too many variables.
Also, there really are 10x programmers. At my current job, the new programmer took a couple of weeks to do something that I thought would take a couple of days. (and I was already familiar with the codebase, so my estimate of how long it would take me to do it was probably accurate) That's only 5x, but he's be deficient in other ways, such as not noticing severe bugs until other people pointed them out.