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Re:Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer by ignoramous on Friday October 08, 2021 @07:30AM (#28798022)
You mix popularity with 10x. Not all 10x programmers are popular.

I believe 10xers exist within a business or technical context. This isn't limited to the field of computer science, but even traditional engineering (Edison) and sciences (Newton) have plenty 10x examples.

Re:Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer by e1g on Friday October 08, 2021 @07:51AM (#28798171)
I'm not mixing - as I wrote, many more are not famous, but their impact is similar. When discussing abstract concepts, it helps to have concrete examples of that phenomena. Using "famous" people is a shortcut to define a shared definition for what "10x" might look like.

And yes, there are "10x" teachers, investors, lawyers, storytellers, sales folks, etc. Similarly, the distribution of talent that helps with "software development" might have a very long tail, leading to extraordinary performance versus the median.

Re:Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer by texasbigdata on Friday October 08, 2021 @08:39AM (#28798510)
IF 10x exist, some will be popular and most won’t. Obviously he won’t know the obscure ones or pick examples you can’t relate to. So while he didn’t prove his point perhaps, perhaps you didn’t disprove his either. :)