Software as brick-laying gets a laugh out of me. If someone uses that analogy, that's a red-flag: they don't really understand software (and tech). It's like offshored bodyshops that just keep throwing more warm bodies at a codebase.
Truth is, a 10x isn't someone who lays bricks 10 times faster. A 10x is someone who thinks differently. Instead of building you a something with load-bearing walls, he'll innovate and use an internal steel frame, paving the way for your building to be taller than anything previously considered possible. [0]
> Software as brick-laying gets a laugh out of me.
I think that may have been precisely GP's point: The quantitatively-exact-sounding "10x" could possibly be used about an easily-measured well-defined task like brick-laying (which usage could be confirmed by the occurrence of variants like "I'm actually a 12x [or only a 9x] bricklayer"), but not about less well-defined / measurable crafts like programming.
Yet they are doing software, aren't they ? So bricklaying has to be part of the "writing software" definition.
In one analogy it could be the 10x bricklayer. One who does a well defined job 10 times faster than the others. I think this is the notion people oppose.
Another analogy is the 10x classical composer. A person who produces music that is 10 times better music. But this is much more about creative/artistic capacity than about producing. Nobody oppose this.
I that your examples incarnate the same idea: It is not about producing code faster. It is about having better ideas.