The 10x developer is not a myth (2013)
The reason for pushback on the idea 10x programmers isn&#x27;t the real gradient of skill, it&#x27;s the labor aspect. Lots of companies want to hire 10x without paying 10x dollars, and they&#x27;ve figured out that blowing smoke up the ass of young people (though it works better on young men than women) is a way to squeeze blood from that stone.<p>Especially if you&#x27;re working in a small company, you&#x27;re going to hit a point when there is a massive wall of work to be done, bigger than you would ever be able to handle alone, and your organization will fail if you don&#x27;t do it. The skills you need to actually handle that situation are going to be more in the vein of basic professionalism than technical talent. Better programmers might need a bigger wall before things get rough, but they will still hit it.<p>The reason for criticizing the 10x idea isn&#x27;t that it doesn&#x27;t exist, the reason is because feeds into myths that might end up being harmful far beyond the actionable decisions it lets you make.