I've always been confused by the "rockstar" thing as well. I know what they're trying to say, but it seems like a strange metaphor. Rock stars are quintessentially style over substance. Sure many of them are competent musicians, some are even very good, but that's pretty incidental to their rockstardom. A rock stars main job is to look the part and sell the brand while others do the heavy lifting. That seems almost the opposite of what you'd want in a programmer. What you really want isn't the rockstar, but the virtuoso guitarist who is always kept slightly in the background but is the main reason why the rockstar sounds so good.