6 ms·

Not an evidence based paper, but via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%27s_law, the occurrence of a 10x programmer

by esturk 9y ago

Not an evidence based paper, but via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%27s_law, the occurrence of a 10x programmer may occur 1/100 from the talent pool. A 28xer would mean 1/784. Now all this is only an extrapolation of the above power law which was originally meant to describe papers published within a time frame. And to make things more meaningful, its really hard to compare people across teams and even companies. And finally, its all relative within a company. From other posts, it feels like people tend to overestimate other's ability. I'm sure all those anecdotes are true but the evaluation of said individual to be 10xer may be overstated without a sensible metric.

warrenm 9y ago
> it feels like people tend to overestimate other's ability. I'm sure all those anecdotes are true but the evaluation of said individual to be 10xer may be overstated without a sensible metric It's incredibly hard to estimate anyone's relative abilities in knowledge fields - and this includes yourself (probably worst of all - estimating your own ability is remarkably wrong much of the time). How much of someone else's ability came down to an "aha! moment"? How much was because of what they've done before. How much was because of what they heard someone say about the problem that no one else caught? How much was seeing three other teammate's efforts, and noticing they're reproducing work, and can cut some of their workloads? How much was because they kept everyone else excited and motivated to finish the project and do well? Some things are easy to compare - times to run a 5K, how many biscuits you can roll in an hour, how many bricks you can carry at once. Most things aren't that simple. Analyzing the relative ability multiplier for any given contributor can really only be done after the fact (often well after), if at all.

by esturk 9y ago

warrenm 9y ago

> it feels like people tend to overestimate other's ability. I'm sure all those anecdotes are true but the evaluation of said individual to be 10xer may be overstated without a sensible metric It's incredibly hard to estimate anyone's relative abilities in knowledge fields - and this includes yourself (probably worst of all - estimating your own ability is remarkably wrong much of the time). How much of someone else's ability came down to an "aha! moment"? How much was because of what they've done before. How much was because of what they heard someone say about the problem that no one else caught? How much was seeing three other teammate's efforts, and noticing they're reproducing work, and can cut some of their workloads? How much was because they kept everyone else excited and motivated to finish the project and do well? Some things are easy to compare - times to run a 5K, how many biscuits you can roll in an hour, how many bricks you can carry at once. Most things aren't that simple. Analyzing the relative ability multiplier for any given contributor can really only be done after the fact (often well after), if at all.