I'm willing to bet that a lot of Notch's productivity is based on things he learned in previous projects. According to Wikipedia, he's been programming video ga

I'm willing to bet that a lot of Notch's productivity is based on things he learned in previous projects. According to Wikipedia, he's been programming video games since 86. That's 26 years of experience. If you use those 26 years wisely, you'll learn a lot of different things - and more importantly, you can draw on 26 years of mistakes that you now know to avoid. I'm not saying he's not also a talented programmer - but all "superstars" I know are as good as they are because they have worked hard for a long time, and they keep working hard. (She says while posting on HN... I probably should head back over to my code ;)