For the people that are saying that the "10x more productive" programmer is a myth, I assure you these people exist, but you're likely not one of them (nor am I

For the people that are saying that the "10x more productive" programmer is a myth, I assure you these people exist, but you're likely not one of them (nor am I). The most impressive hacker I've ever known worked with me in the advanced research lab in a ginormous tech behemoth company. Let's call him "Bob". He was so good that people in the team would sometimes call him "Super Bob". There are lots of stories I could tell about him, but he (working alone) was often able to hack out stable, working code in months, solving problems that had proven too difficult for entire software engineering organizations and multi-year projects. This happened more than once. "Super Bob" got paid at the top end of the "average" pay scale, but was genuinely happy. He could work when he wanted, and on what he wanted, had his own lab, and no one messed with him. I tried to recruit him into my first startup when I left the company but I came to realize he wasn't interested in making tons of money, especially if it meant taking risk, sacrificing the access to huge resources (and toys), freedom and autonomy that he'd developed.