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Steve wasn't exactly a man of science. He pulled that number out of his ass and everyone here seems to think it smells great! Why not 100:1? I'm pretty sure yo

Steve wasn't exactly a man of science. He pulled that number out of his ass and everyone here seems to think it smells great! Why not 100:1? I'm pretty sure you can find 100x spread in developer compensation at Google. The ones who got in early vs. the ones who came after the IPO. They got in early because they were amazing, not because they were lucky. Not.

vbtemp 14y ago
> Steve wasn't exactly a man of science. He pulled that number out of his ass and everyone here seems to think it smells great! Haha, what a perfect quote! Thanks
taligent 14y ago
I mean what would Steve Jobs know. He surely hasn't met many decent developers managing the Macintosh or NeXT teams or as CEO of an IT company with 100K+ employees. Did it ever occur to you that 25:1 number might come from being in a unique position to compare the relative output of multiple engineering teams of similar sizes at Apple ?
- planetguy 14y ago
  He might have done a quantitative study, but there's no indication that he did. If he'd shown his working and described his methodology then I'd believe him, but since he doesn't I estimate that he probably pulled that number ex anum. There aren't any useful metrics for coder productivity anyway. You can measure lines per day, but that's not telling you what you want to know. The best programmers aren't best because they do simple tasks twenty-five times faster than the average programmer, they're the best because they do really difficult tasks in ways that the average programmer would never, ever do.
- warmfuzzykitten 14y ago
  As I said, why not 10:1 (a commonly repeated, equally unsupported ratio) 50:1 or 100:1? So no, the 25:1 number came from being in the unique position to spout precise-sounding, unsubstantiated numbers in an environment where nobody would argue with him. What did occur to me is there are no significant digits in that number.
  - robocat 14y ago
    Being pedantic, but I definitely have seen developers with zero productivity: so everyone else productive is infinitely better... Excepting, there are also programmers and teams with negative productivity - work out the ratio!
- celer 14y ago
  Yes. But 25 is a suspiciously round number.
notJim 14y ago
I was planning to make a similar comment. I don't doubt that a great engineer outperforms a mediocre one in productivity, ingenuity, innovation, whatever, but living by this as your mantra, and making hiring decisions around it as if it were a scientifically-proven study seems incredibly dangerous.
clarky07 14y ago
who cares if he pulled the number out of his ass? The point is that great devs are not just 10% better than mediocre ones. They are many times better for all kinds of different reasons. That is a very valid point, an important one to consider for anyone hiring, and it doesn't matter if the number is 5, 10, 25, or 100.

vbtemp 14y ago

> Steve wasn't exactly a man of science. He pulled that number out of his ass and everyone here seems to think it smells great! Haha, what a perfect quote! Thanks

taligent 14y ago

I mean what would Steve Jobs know. He surely hasn't met many decent developers managing the Macintosh or NeXT teams or as CEO of an IT company with 100K+ employees. Did it ever occur to you that 25:1 number might come from being in a unique position to compare the relative output of multiple engineering teams of similar sizes at Apple ?

planetguy 14y ago
He might have done a quantitative study, but there's no indication that he did. If he'd shown his working and described his methodology then I'd believe him, but since he doesn't I estimate that he probably pulled that number ex anum. There aren't any useful metrics for coder productivity anyway. You can measure lines per day, but that's not telling you what you want to know. The best programmers aren't best because they do simple tasks twenty-five times faster than the average programmer, they're the best because they do really difficult tasks in ways that the average programmer would never, ever do.
warmfuzzykitten 14y ago
As I said, why not 10:1 (a commonly repeated, equally unsupported ratio) 50:1 or 100:1? So no, the 25:1 number came from being in the unique position to spout precise-sounding, unsubstantiated numbers in an environment where nobody would argue with him. What did occur to me is there are no significant digits in that number.
- robocat 14y ago
  Being pedantic, but I definitely have seen developers with zero productivity: so everyone else productive is infinitely better... Excepting, there are also programmers and teams with negative productivity - work out the ratio!
celer 14y ago
Yes. But 25 is a suspiciously round number.

notJim 14y ago

I was planning to make a similar comment. I don't doubt that a great engineer outperforms a mediocre one in productivity, ingenuity, innovation, whatever, but living by this as your mantra, and making hiring decisions around it as if it were a scientifically-proven study seems incredibly dangerous.

clarky07 14y ago

who cares if he pulled the number out of his ass? The point is that great devs are not just 10% better than mediocre ones. They are many times better for all kinds of different reasons. That is a very valid point, an important one to consider for anyone hiring, and it doesn't matter if the number is 5, 10, 25, or 100.