Well the number ten has obvious origins. Thanks to evolution we have ten fingers that we like to use to count with. I don't think many people believe it's based

Well the number ten has obvious origins. Thanks to evolution we have ten fingers that we like to use to count with. I don't think many people believe it's based on some rigorous data. A lot of people comment on HN that there are no 10x engineers, which I find strange. How can you work in this industry and not be convinced of the huge gradient in productivity? We measure productivity with #bugs, #points of features, etc. It's pretty crude, but better than lines of code. It really doesn't tell the whole story though, because most of what makes a 10x engineer is not solving problems faster, but solving the right problem in the first place.