One issue some programmers have is discerning that not all code has the same value. I think with code it&#x27;s harder than with physical things to &quot;know where the value is&quot;.<p>It&#x27;s obvious, for example, that we don&#x27;t need titanium cupholders in a car, but maybe titanium rods _are_ necessary to achieve a particular level of performance.<p>But in software, you&#x27;ll see programmers doing the ethical equivalent of putting in titanium cupholders &quot;because it&#x27;s the best&quot; or whatever, with no regard to the cost.<p>In my experience, a 10x programmer is a 1x programmer who knows where the value is and spends their time on that.