10x is mostly theater. I’ve worked with 3x engineers that made everyone else better, and 3x engineers that make everyone else much worse. 4 times out of 5 a manager will point to the latter as 10x because he is getting so much more done than the people he has crippled and been loud about it the entire time. The former does well when their boss is that 1 in 5 person, but they are often fucked if the boss leaves.