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Both numbers are entirely ludicrous - highly skilled people are certainly quite valuable. But it's insane that these companies aren't just training up more int

by munk-a 1y ago

Both numbers are entirely ludicrous - highly skilled people are certainly quite valuable. But it's insane that these companies aren't just training up more internally. The 50x developer is a pervasive myth in our industry and it's one that needs to be put to rest.

bitexploder 1y ago
The 50x distinguished engineer is real though. Companies and fortunes are won and lost on strategic decisions.
- kridsdale1 1y ago
  Dave Cutler is a perfect example. Produced trillions of dollars in value with his code.
charcircuit 1y ago
It's not a myth and with how much productivity AI tools can give others, there can be an order of magnitude difference than outside of AI.
xnx 1y ago
> training up more internally Why would employees stay after getting trained if they have a better offer?
- coolspot 1y ago
  A tamper-proof electronic collar with some C4.
- munk-a 1y ago
  They won't always. You'll always have turn-over - but if it's a major problem for your company it's clearly something you need to work out internally. People, generally, hate switching jobs, especially in an uncertain political climate, especially when expenses are going up - there is a lot of momentum to just stay where you are. You may lose a few employees to poaching, sure - but the math on the relative cost to hire someone for 100m vs. training a bunch employees and losing a portion of those is pretty strongly in your favor.
hadlock 1y ago
You have to out-pay to keep your talent from walking out the door. California does not have non-competes. With the number of AI startups in SF you don't need to relocate or even change your bus route in most cases.
- darth_avocado 1y ago
  This. The main reason OpenAI throws money at top level folks is because they can quickly replicate what they have at OpenAI elsewhere. Imagine you have a top level researcher who’s developed some techniques over multiple years that the competition doesn’t have. The same engineer can take them to another company and bring parity within months. And that’s on top of the progress slowing down within your company. I can’t steal IP, but but sure as hell can bring my head everywhere.
  - epolanski 1y ago
    This is also a good reminder of how there's no moat in AI. I'm glad if US and Chinese investors will bleed trillions on AI, just to find out few of your seniors can leave and found their own company and are at your level minus some months of progress.
xur17 1y ago
If it's an all out race between the different AI providers, then it's logical for OpenAI to hire employees that are pre-trained rather than training up more internally.
lovecg 1y ago
Do other professionals (lawyers, finance etc.) argue for reducing their own compensation with the same fervor that software engineers like to do? The market is great for us, let’s enjoy it while it lasts. The alternative is all those CEOs colluding and pushing the wages down, why is that any better?
- rester324 1y ago
  Mmmmhm. You could have made this argument about 2 years ago, and it would have been credible. But you are making this argument now, when literally hundreds of thousands of engineers are let go in the last few years just in the US alone...? I am not sure how such an argument holds up in such circumstances...
  - kridsdale1 1y ago
    Talent and skill are a power-law, just as they are in basketball. The United states has tens of millions of skilled and competent and qualified people who can play basketball. 1000 of them get paid to play professionally. 10 of them are paid 9 figures and are incredible enough to be household names to non-basketball fans.
- anthem2025 1y ago
  [dead]
a4isms 1y ago
> The 50x developer is a pervasive myth in our industry Doesn't it depend upon how you measure the 50x? If hiring five name-brand AI researchers gets you a billion dollars in funding, they're probably each worth 1,000x what I'm worth to the business.
gmerc 1y ago
Zuck decided it's cheaper than building another Llama
__turbobrew__ 1y ago
The ∞x engineer exists in my opinion. There are some things that can only be executed by a few people that no body else could execute. Like you could throw 10000 engineers at a problem and they might not be able to solve that problem, but a single other person could solve that problem. I have known several people who have went to OAI and I would firmly say they are 10x engineers, but they are just doing general infra stuff that all large tech companies have to do, so I wouldn’t say they are solving problems that only they can solve and nobody else.
- remus 1y ago
  I think you're right to an extent (it's probably fair to say e.g. Einstein and Euler advanced their fields in ways others at the time are unlikely to have done), but I think it's much easier to work out who these people are after the fact whereas if you're dishing out a monster package you're effectively betting that you've found someone who's going to have this massive impact before they've done it. Perhaps a gamble you're willing to take, but a pretty big gamble nonetheless.
  - saagarjha 1y ago
    OpenAI is taking bigger gambles already, though.
- scottyah 1y ago
  It's apparent in other fields too. Reminds me of when Kanye wanted a song like "Sexy Back", so he made Stronger but it sounded "too muddy". He had a bunch of famous, great producers try to help but in the end caved and hired the producer of "Sexy Back". Kanye said it was fixed in five minutes. Nobody wants to hear that one dev can be 50x better, but it's obvious that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses and not every mind is replaceable.
causalmodels 1y ago
These numbers aren't that crazy when contextualized with the capex spend. One hundred million is nothing compared to a six hundred billion dollar data center buildout. Besides, people are actively being trained up. Some labs are just extending offers to people who score very highly on their conscription IQ tests.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
epolanski 1y ago
50x devs are not a myth. In any case the talent is very scarce in AI/ML, the one able to push through good ideas so prices are going to be high for years.
- rester324 1y ago
  I think there is no evidence of any type of 50x devs. There is not even proof of 10x devs. So if there is no evidence, why is that not a myth?
  - epolanski 1y ago
    Of course there is. There's always individuals, developers or not, whose impact is 50 times greater than the average. And the impact is measured financially, meaning, how much money you make. If I find a way to solve an issue in a warehouse sparing the company from having to hire 70 people (that's not a made up number but a real example I've seen), your impact is in the multiple millions, the guy being tasked with delivering tables from some backoffice in the same company is obviously returning fractions of the same productivity. Salvatore Sanfilippo, the author of Redis, alone, built a database that killed companies with hundreds of (brilliant) engineers. Approaching the problems differently allowed him to scale to levels that huge teams could not, and the impact on $ was enormous. Not only that but you can have negative x engineers. Those that create plenty of work, gaslighting and creating issues and slowing entire teams and organizations. If you don't believe in NX developers or individuals that's a you problem, they exist in sports or any other field where single individuals can have impact hundreds of thousands or millions of times more positive than the average one.
    - rester324 1y ago
      I asked if you can prove there are 10x or 50x programmers. You shared anecdotes and theories. I will rather wait until you share some evidence.
      - epolanski 1y ago
belval 1y ago
> it's insane that these companies aren't just training up more internally Adding headcount to a fast growing company *to lower wages* is a sure way to kill your culture, lower the overall quality bar and increase communication overheads significantly. Yes they are paying a lot of their employees and the pool will grow, but adding bodies to a team that is running well in hopes that it will automatically lead to a bump in productivity is the part that is insane. It never works. What will happen is a completely new team (team B) will be formed and given ownership of a component that was previously owned by team A under the guise of "we will just agree on interfaces". Team B will start doing their thing and meeting with Team A representative regularly but integration issues will still arise, except that instead of a tight core of 10-20 developers, you now have 40. They will add a ticketing to track change better, now issues in Team's B service, which could have been addressed in an hour by the right engineer on team A, will take 3 days to get resolved as ticket get triaged/prioritized. Lo and behold, Team C as now appeared and will be owning a sub-component of Team B. Now when Team A has issue with Team B's service, they cut a ticket, but the oncall on Team B investigates and finds that it's actually an issue with Team C's service, they cut their own ticket. Suddenly every little issue takes days and weeks to get resolved because the original core of 10-20 developers is no longer empowered to just move fast. They eventually leave because they feel like their impact and influence has diminished (Team C's manager is very good at politics), Team A is hollowed out and you now have wall-to-wall mediocrity with 120 headcounts and nothing is ever anyone's fault. I had a director that always repeated that communication between N people is inherently N² and thus hiring should always weight in that the candidate being "good" is not enough, they have to pull their weight and make up for the communication overhead that they add to the team.
- kridsdale1 1y ago
  Have worked in BigCo three times scaling teams from 5 to 50 people. This post is bang on.
saagarjha 1y ago
I think the unfortunate reality is that training someone to reach the frontier is time taken away from actually pushing it. The opportunity cost alone is worth millions to them.

by munk-a 1y ago

bitexploder 1y ago

The 50x distinguished engineer is real though. Companies and fortunes are won and lost on strategic decisions.

kridsdale1 1y ago
Dave Cutler is a perfect example. Produced trillions of dollars in value with his code.

charcircuit 1y ago

It's not a myth and with how much productivity AI tools can give others, there can be an order of magnitude difference than outside of AI.

xnx 1y ago

> training up more internally Why would employees stay after getting trained if they have a better offer?

coolspot 1y ago
A tamper-proof electronic collar with some C4.
munk-a 1y ago
They won't always. You'll always have turn-over - but if it's a major problem for your company it's clearly something you need to work out internally. People, generally, hate switching jobs, especially in an uncertain political climate, especially when expenses are going up - there is a lot of momentum to just stay where you are. You may lose a few employees to poaching, sure - but the math on the relative cost to hire someone for 100m vs. training a bunch employees and losing a portion of those is pretty strongly in your favor.

hadlock 1y ago

You have to out-pay to keep your talent from walking out the door. California does not have non-competes. With the number of AI startups in SF you don't need to relocate or even change your bus route in most cases.

darth_avocado 1y ago
This. The main reason OpenAI throws money at top level folks is because they can quickly replicate what they have at OpenAI elsewhere. Imagine you have a top level researcher who’s developed some techniques over multiple years that the competition doesn’t have. The same engineer can take them to another company and bring parity within months. And that’s on top of the progress slowing down within your company. I can’t steal IP, but but sure as hell can bring my head everywhere.
- epolanski 1y ago
  This is also a good reminder of how there's no moat in AI. I'm glad if US and Chinese investors will bleed trillions on AI, just to find out few of your seniors can leave and found their own company and are at your level minus some months of progress.

xur17 1y ago

If it's an all out race between the different AI providers, then it's logical for OpenAI to hire employees that are pre-trained rather than training up more internally.

lovecg 1y ago

Do other professionals (lawyers, finance etc.) argue for reducing their own compensation with the same fervor that software engineers like to do? The market is great for us, let’s enjoy it while it lasts. The alternative is all those CEOs colluding and pushing the wages down, why is that any better?

rester324 1y ago
Mmmmhm. You could have made this argument about 2 years ago, and it would have been credible. But you are making this argument now, when literally hundreds of thousands of engineers are let go in the last few years just in the US alone...? I am not sure how such an argument holds up in such circumstances...
- kridsdale1 1y ago
  Talent and skill are a power-law, just as they are in basketball. The United states has tens of millions of skilled and competent and qualified people who can play basketball. 1000 of them get paid to play professionally. 10 of them are paid 9 figures and are incredible enough to be household names to non-basketball fans.
anthem2025 1y ago
[dead]

a4isms 1y ago

> The 50x developer is a pervasive myth in our industry Doesn't it depend upon how you measure the 50x? If hiring five name-brand AI researchers gets you a billion dollars in funding, they're probably each worth 1,000x what I'm worth to the business.

gmerc 1y ago

Zuck decided it's cheaper than building another Llama

__turbobrew__ 1y ago

The ∞x engineer exists in my opinion. There are some things that can only be executed by a few people that no body else could execute. Like you could throw 10000 engineers at a problem and they might not be able to solve that problem, but a single other person could solve that problem. I have known several people who have went to OAI and I would firmly say they are 10x engineers, but they are just doing general infra stuff that all large tech companies have to do, so I wouldn’t say they are solving problems that only they can solve and nobody else.

remus 1y ago
I think you're right to an extent (it's probably fair to say e.g. Einstein and Euler advanced their fields in ways others at the time are unlikely to have done), but I think it's much easier to work out who these people are after the fact whereas if you're dishing out a monster package you're effectively betting that you've found someone who's going to have this massive impact before they've done it. Perhaps a gamble you're willing to take, but a pretty big gamble nonetheless.
- saagarjha 1y ago
  OpenAI is taking bigger gambles already, though.
scottyah 1y ago
It's apparent in other fields too. Reminds me of when Kanye wanted a song like "Sexy Back", so he made Stronger but it sounded "too muddy". He had a bunch of famous, great producers try to help but in the end caved and hired the producer of "Sexy Back". Kanye said it was fixed in five minutes. Nobody wants to hear that one dev can be 50x better, but it's obvious that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses and not every mind is replaceable.

causalmodels 1y ago

These numbers aren't that crazy when contextualized with the capex spend. One hundred million is nothing compared to a six hundred billion dollar data center buildout. Besides, people are actively being trained up. Some labs are just extending offers to people who score very highly on their conscription IQ tests.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

epolanski 1y ago

50x devs are not a myth. In any case the talent is very scarce in AI/ML, the one able to push through good ideas so prices are going to be high for years.

rester324 1y ago
I think there is no evidence of any type of 50x devs. There is not even proof of 10x devs. So if there is no evidence, why is that not a myth?
- epolanski 1y ago
  Of course there is. There's always individuals, developers or not, whose impact is 50 times greater than the average. And the impact is measured financially, meaning, how much money you make. If I find a way to solve an issue in a warehouse sparing the company from having to hire 70 people (that's not a made up number but a real example I've seen), your impact is in the multiple millions, the guy being tasked with delivering tables from some backoffice in the same company is obviously returning fractions of the same productivity. Salvatore Sanfilippo, the author of Redis, alone, built a database that killed companies with hundreds of (brilliant) engineers. Approaching the problems differently allowed him to scale to levels that huge teams could not, and the impact on $ was enormous. Not only that but you can have negative x engineers. Those that create plenty of work, gaslighting and creating issues and slowing entire teams and organizations. If you don't believe in NX developers or individuals that's a you problem, they exist in sports or any other field where single individuals can have impact hundreds of thousands or millions of times more positive than the average one.
  - rester324 1y ago
    I asked if you can prove there are 10x or 50x programmers. You shared anecdotes and theories. I will rather wait until you share some evidence.
    - epolanski 1y ago

belval 1y ago

> it's insane that these companies aren't just training up more internally Adding headcount to a fast growing company *to lower wages* is a sure way to kill your culture, lower the overall quality bar and increase communication overheads significantly. Yes they are paying a lot of their employees and the pool will grow, but adding bodies to a team that is running well in hopes that it will automatically lead to a bump in productivity is the part that is insane. It never works. What will happen is a completely new team (team B) will be formed and given ownership of a component that was previously owned by team A under the guise of "we will just agree on interfaces". Team B will start doing their thing and meeting with Team A representative regularly but integration issues will still arise, except that instead of a tight core of 10-20 developers, you now have 40. They will add a ticketing to track change better, now issues in Team's B service, which could have been addressed in an hour by the right engineer on team A, will take 3 days to get resolved as ticket get triaged/prioritized. Lo and behold, Team C as now appeared and will be owning a sub-component of Team B. Now when Team A has issue with Team B's service, they cut a ticket, but the oncall on Team B investigates and finds that it's actually an issue with Team C's service, they cut their own ticket. Suddenly every little issue takes days and weeks to get resolved because the original core of 10-20 developers is no longer empowered to just move fast. They eventually leave because they feel like their impact and influence has diminished (Team C's manager is very good at politics), Team A is hollowed out and you now have wall-to-wall mediocrity with 120 headcounts and nothing is ever anyone's fault. I had a director that always repeated that communication between N people is inherently N² and thus hiring should always weight in that the candidate being "good" is not enough, they have to pull their weight and make up for the communication overhead that they add to the team.

kridsdale1 1y ago
Have worked in BigCo three times scaling teams from 5 to 50 people. This post is bang on.

saagarjha 1y ago

I think the unfortunate reality is that training someone to reach the frontier is time taken away from actually pushing it. The opportunity cost alone is worth millions to them.