It's not necessarily "10". It's somewhere between 1.5 and 1000 depending on the project. It's 2-3x for typical business work; 10+ for infrastructural work that

It's not necessarily "10". It's somewhere between 1.5 and 1000 depending on the project. It's 2-3x for typical business work; 10+ for infrastructural work that multiplies across the company (i.e. makes everyone more productive). I'm writing about developer economics (Part 22 of a series that was supposed to be 22 parts, but will be 23). in other words, it's all about leverage. 10x in the abstract probably doesn't make sense, but a good developer that is able to leverage that ability can produce real value. and of course, the opposite is true. if a cowboy style developer produces a ton of work while taking on technical debt, and this isn't probably accounted for, the technical debt can spiral out of control. this of course slows everybody else down, and the cowboy's reputation as the 10x is reinforced ... yeah, i've been there ... no i'm not bitter.