He might as well be but why would he give a flying fuck about it? He gets to do what he wants and is financially independent for doing just that. Most can only dream about it.
Myself - I do not come within a million miles to his professional level, but I still have managed to do just that - I develop what I want, how I want and get paid for it. I am 64 and still design and develop actively for my own company and for clients. Gives me happiness, motivation to stay alert and more than enough time to still do my hobbies (mostly various outdoor activities).
>Fabrice won International Obfuscated C Code Contest three times and you need a certain mindset to create code like that—which creeps into your other work. So despite his implementation of FFmpeg was fast-working, it was not very nice to debug or refactor, especially if you’re not Fabrice
Maybe but what’s the point? Hell, I might guess he is terrible at jiggling and basket weaving, too. Complete failure as wrestler, even. But that is kind of neither here or there. Or is it you think staff title at faangs is some kind of pinnacle position every engineer should strive for? It actually always strikes me as a funny title. In college when they didn’t have a specific professor to teach or just going to use a grad student they put “staff” in the name box so in my mind it’s associated with a random lower rung student who couldn’t get away doing just research.
“‘We're delighted to have you here,’ he said, ‘but a word of advice. Don't try to be clever. We're all clever here. Only try to be kind, a little kind.’ Like most university stories, this one is variously attributed and it probably never even happened but, as the Italians say, se non e vero, e ben trovato - even if it isn't true, it's well founded.” ⸺ Stephen Fry.
Why would he want to do that, though?
Fabrice Bellard is not a 10x engineer, he is a 100x engineer. You could attach him to a good people manager and either build a team around him or allow him to work independently on a project that he finds exciting that also aligns with company goals.
Put Terry Davis (again him) as senior manager at Apple, and see the result.
From my point of view, Terry has the same level and approaches as Fabrice.
It does not guarantee at all that he is going to be more productive than 100 engineers as you directly claim.
It makes them good in what they like to do (writing obfuscated or low-level code, or implementing from scratch from specifications) as art or creativity.
I am definitely not talking about art.
When I refer to 100x engineer, I'm referring to the impact that QEMU and FFmpeg have had on the world. I would be surprised if anyone who is familiar with these two projects would disagree that they have been highly impactful.
EDIT: Fair enough, I think he would be very productive due to useful contributions, at the end I agree with you.
I wish for you to one day have to face the same problems he did.
There is no need to wish me harm because I compared two people who had the same similar tech level and approach as art, rather than pursuing productivity as a first goal.
Again sorry if that made you upset, I just wanted to share my train of thoughts:
It was to show that "tech skills" != "tech lead skills" + "tech skills" != "productivity".
In fact, sometimes great devs can be counter-productive, as they tend to write code that they are the only one who can maintain (bus factor), or optimizations that turns out to be net negative when working as a team.
Here it is a mixed bag, Fabrice is very productive at least as a solo contributor (c.f. FFmpeg or QEMU), but Terry obviously wouldn't be.
About the comparison, it may sound strange to you, but I am talking only about the tech-side to show that tech skills do not always align with human skills (or management, or team lead), and Terry seemed to me the perfect example of something completely disconnected.
In practice it is difficult to find other examples of people who wrote their own compiler, put a huge amount of energy, just for the sake of writing a compiler.
Thinking about of the most well-known projects: Bellard's "Obfuscated Tiny C Compiler" (which then became TCC), it's not that crazy to compare it to the "HolyC compiler".
Now outside, in their private life, they are very different, and nobody doubts that.
Side-note: I actually like very much what Fabrice does.
To your credit, again the two persons are NOT at all equivalent or comparable, just that the resulting works are, but for different reasons.
What kind of point are you making?
Then he had the dissease and could not keep working.
Bellard wouldn't apply and be interviewed like some Stanford grad. He would be head hunted and told he can do whatever he wants and receive a massive amount of compensation.
I'm not sure why you woulf assert he wouldn't pass the interview that seems totally outrageous.
Given his alma mater and the way the French education system works, he performed too-of-France at “solve math problems on a blackboard in front of someone” after two years of grinding math problems including extensive practice for the aforementioned “solve math problems on a blackboard in front of someone”. I think he could manage. FAANG interview is basically a CS khôlle.
Why would you even think that these sort of exceptional people would even be interested in mere jobs?
These are people who are solo auteurs; something in them feels a need to express themselves in full creativity without restraint in any domain they choose to focus on. That is what makes them unique because they are the few who can change Science into Art and make it seem effortless. The common man calls them "Geniuses" but it is actually a way of living, thinking and training.
Much of Society's institutions, companies, jobs etc. is designed to get the most out of the average person which does not work for creative individuals. To measure the latter using the yardstick for average is foolish in the extreme. This is why true Scientists/Researchers/Artists etc. need to be treated very differently from the "common" man.
For all the hoopla about Corporations/Companies/Groups/Teams etc. in the modern world, all our civilizational breakthroughs have emerged from a single individual or a small group of individuals.
The bunch hung from a high branch, and the Fox had to jump for it. The first time he jumped he missed it by a long way. So he walked off a short distance and took a running leap at it, only to fall short once more. Again and again he tried, but in vain.
Now he sat down and looked at the grapes in disgust. "What a fool I am," he said. "Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for." And off he walked very, very scornfully.