> Unlike in other types of say, physical labor where a top performer is just a few (X) more productive than the average performer -- in software, a top performe

> Unlike in other types of say, physical labor where a top performer is just a few (X) more productive than the average performer -- in software, a top performer can be orders of magnitude (10-100X) more productive / more creative than the average worker. i don't buy that at all. 100x means that the person could do one day's worth of work that would then take five months for a "normal" engineer to accomplish the same work. that simply isn't realistic. there may be one off cases, but that's a possibility in any field, although you seem to claim otherwise. and "orders of magnitude" implies a lot. 10x is one order of magnitude, and 100x (highly doubtful anyway) is just two orders of magnitude.