For me the “10x” meme was never about 10x vs the average (which is a unicorn) but rather 10x variation where there are 10x variation within a group of developers. This is very much a thing in my experience, but it’s because you can have a 1/5x average developer and a 2x average developer. That’s a 10x difference. There is simply no limit to how unproductive you can be, but there is a limit to how much you can produce.
If you have a group with a very low productivity as average, then a single very good developer can be a 10x developer compared to that group. From the perspective of one of the 1/5 developers this senior “2x average” dev will look like the unicorn 10x dev. Perhaps this is where the myth comes from?
If you have a group with a very low productivity as average, then a single very good developer can be a 10x developer compared to that group. From the perspective of one of the 1/5 developers this senior “2x average” dev will look like the unicorn 10x dev. Perhaps this is where the myth comes from?