It's a marketing term invented by companies for recruiting. If you think about it, A-Player simply means: "the people who we decided to hire". The idea is brill

It's a marketing term invented by companies for recruiting. If you think about it, A-Player simply means: "the people who we decided to hire". The idea is brilliant: - If you are rejected, it is your fault. You are not good enough. - If you are fired, it is you fault. You are no longer good enough. - While you are working there, it boosts your ego, because you are "one of the elite", a "no compromise high-performer", a "rockstar" an "A-Player", etc. and you feel no empathy for the fired/rejected ones -- "they were not good enough, but I am!". And of course you do everything to remain employed, since that is what makes you the cool kid. Of course other products are marketed in a similar fashion, by artificially creating a feel of "exclusivism" -- it is just a bit harder to recognize it in the software world, since it is designed to push our own "secret nerd desire button" (feeling mentally superior to others).