4 ms·

A fun comparison is that Usain Bolt, who literally wins gold medals, is not even a 10x runner: a tenth of his world-record speed 100m works out to a brisk walk.

eloff 4y ago
That's no leverage in running. There's a lot of leverage in software engineering. That's what allows such a wide diversity of productivity.
- xeromal 4y ago
  What is leverage? VIM?
  - zarzavat 4y ago
    Compare a programmer with good autocomplete to a programmer who has to keep stopping to look up documentation online. That’s a double digit % improvement just by installing the right plugins.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    Leverage is just another word for debt. ;-)
  - trashtester 4y ago
    A good editor (and the ability to use it efficiently) is a relatively small factor, comparable to the ability to type quickly. Much greater leverage can be found in the ability to innovate, to have the undestanding needed to quickly select a good approach to solve some problem and the social skills needed to lead a team or company in a direction where they can (to re-use the term) leverage such new innovations in ways that generate maximum value. For instance, if you have a team that uses RESTful java microservices on k8s for EVERYTHING, many compute heavy or IO heavy tasks may require massive clusters to run a data processing pipeline. If you're the engineers that identifies this as inefficient, finds way to build the pipeline using a more suitable tech stack, and introduce this stack to your company, you could the infrastructure cost of a company by millions per year. That's kind of comparing the use of cargo ships to mules for transporting goods. And if the tech you introduce also enable 10 other devs to develop 3x faster, this alone would make your effort as valuable as having at least 20 more such engineers. (20x).
  - eloff 4y ago
    In this context, the ability to have an outsized impact in relation to your input. Think of a physical lever.
    - mattkrause 4y ago
      The reason I don't like "10x engineer" as a term is that it's often presented as an attribute of the person, but I think it's really often an attribute of the situation. People obviously differ in abilities, but those differences are massively exaggerated by the environment. The best engineer at Twitter probably isn't getting much done this month. Conversely, a few people who were solidly average at their last job are probably rocking it because they've landed in a place where the work is a good match for their skills, the path forward is obvious and feels secure, and they're getting the needed support from their colleagues.
coryrc 4y ago
He's ten times faster than my grandfather could go 100m.
- mattkrause 4y ago
  Depending on the source[0], average walking speed in older adults is about 0.8-1 m/s. The world record is 100m /9.63 s = 10.4 m/s, so it would not be at all surprising if your grandad were just about 10x slower. Since the "10x engineer" is defined relative to other engineers, the right comparison is probably more like "other runners" than all people, which of course narrows that gap even more. [0] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/644554 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/644554 summarizes some studies in Table 1.
bluedino 4y ago
Now do an ultra-marathoner
- mattkrause 4y ago
  The world record for 100 miles is about 11 hours. I'd bet most healthy adults could cover 10 miles in a day of sight-seeing. A walk around Central Park is about 6 miles, for comparison. Throw in a museum or two and you're mostly there.
im3w1l 4y ago
A big part of being 10x is to use the right tool for the job. In this case a plane.
- trashtester 4y ago
  Or build the right tool for a job, for others to use. Imagine a world without tractors. The engineer that designs a tractor and builds a tractor factory would be a million-x farmer, while the farmers who buy the tractors become 10x farmers, until the others catch up. Innovations and inventions, even in a very small and local context, may easily generate >10x more value than the output of a stereotypical "code monkey" who at best delivers according to a well written documentation.

eloff 4y ago

That's no leverage in running. There's a lot of leverage in software engineering. That's what allows such a wide diversity of productivity.

xeromal 4y ago
What is leverage? VIM?
- zarzavat 4y ago
  Compare a programmer with good autocomplete to a programmer who has to keep stopping to look up documentation online. That’s a double digit % improvement just by installing the right plugins.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  Leverage is just another word for debt. ;-)
- trashtester 4y ago
  A good editor (and the ability to use it efficiently) is a relatively small factor, comparable to the ability to type quickly. Much greater leverage can be found in the ability to innovate, to have the undestanding needed to quickly select a good approach to solve some problem and the social skills needed to lead a team or company in a direction where they can (to re-use the term) leverage such new innovations in ways that generate maximum value. For instance, if you have a team that uses RESTful java microservices on k8s for EVERYTHING, many compute heavy or IO heavy tasks may require massive clusters to run a data processing pipeline. If you're the engineers that identifies this as inefficient, finds way to build the pipeline using a more suitable tech stack, and introduce this stack to your company, you could the infrastructure cost of a company by millions per year. That's kind of comparing the use of cargo ships to mules for transporting goods. And if the tech you introduce also enable 10 other devs to develop 3x faster, this alone would make your effort as valuable as having at least 20 more such engineers. (20x).
- eloff 4y ago
  In this context, the ability to have an outsized impact in relation to your input. Think of a physical lever.
  - mattkrause 4y ago
    The reason I don't like "10x engineer" as a term is that it's often presented as an attribute of the person, but I think it's really often an attribute of the situation. People obviously differ in abilities, but those differences are massively exaggerated by the environment. The best engineer at Twitter probably isn't getting much done this month. Conversely, a few people who were solidly average at their last job are probably rocking it because they've landed in a place where the work is a good match for their skills, the path forward is obvious and feels secure, and they're getting the needed support from their colleagues.

coryrc 4y ago

He's ten times faster than my grandfather could go 100m.

mattkrause 4y ago
Depending on the source[0], average walking speed in older adults is about 0.8-1 m/s. The world record is 100m /9.63 s = 10.4 m/s, so it would not be at all surprising if your grandad were just about 10x slower. Since the "10x engineer" is defined relative to other engineers, the right comparison is probably more like "other runners" than all people, which of course narrows that gap even more. [0] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/644554 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/644554 summarizes some studies in Table 1.

bluedino 4y ago

Now do an ultra-marathoner

mattkrause 4y ago
The world record for 100 miles is about 11 hours. I'd bet most healthy adults could cover 10 miles in a day of sight-seeing. A walk around Central Park is about 6 miles, for comparison. Throw in a museum or two and you're mostly there.

im3w1l 4y ago

A big part of being 10x is to use the right tool for the job. In this case a plane.

trashtester 4y ago
Or build the right tool for a job, for others to use. Imagine a world without tractors. The engineer that designs a tractor and builds a tractor factory would be a million-x farmer, while the farmers who buy the tractors become 10x farmers, until the others catch up. Innovations and inventions, even in a very small and local context, may easily generate >10x more value than the output of a stereotypical "code monkey" who at best delivers according to a well written documentation.