That's pretty much my observation, I've seen many high-output types, but seen maybe one or two people who "might" be far above average output/quality. Generall

That's pretty much my observation, I've seen many high-output types, but seen maybe one or two people who "might" be far above average output/quality. Generally I see people who become 10x by pushing down the effectiveness of those around them to 1x. If I write something that works, but am then told to pretty much re-do it all to fit a different design, my productivity becomes pretty low. Yes, I could start with a different design, but my impression has been that there is basically no initial design I can do that won't be re-designed by the '10x' individual, because they feel it's their job to 'improve' everyone else's design. Now, as another commentor pointed out, some people can be brought in to solve a problem others cannot solve (simulated annealing solution, which I'll just say "oooook" to). Sure, there are individuals who can solve actual problems others can't, but those actual problems are very rare. Most of the problems I have are 'ship the product' types, not 'solve this one very hard problem' types.