When the overall quality / delivery metric of an individual / team tends to 0, then the ratio between a good (normal) programmer over that will tend to infinity

When the overall quality / delivery metric of an individual / team tends to 0, then the ratio between a good (normal) programmer over that will tend to infinity. Probably the biggest aspect not dealt with in these writings along with the discussion around it (is there or is there not such a beast) is bias. For example, selection bias: e.g. my view over what was the best / worst programmer was much different when working in different teams. I found out there could be much worse than what I thought is the worse. Then I learned that there could be much worse... It's like a fractal :) As you notice these differences a 10x difference doesn't seem that crazy. It's really things that should take a few weeks, which in turn take months or years or never get done. Also like any other optimization problem, optimizing software development is about hitting a moving target. When the team is balanced, it may be the process that will become a bottleneck, etc.