a. There are no 10x engineers, just environments where there is a 10x discrepancy in productivity.
b. There are no 10x engineers, just 10x yardsticks.
c. There are no 10x engineers, but plenty of .1x engineers.
Also, I hate the term "10x engineer". Everything follows a normal distribution.
Evidence suggests that technical talent is bimodal.
A normal distribution doesn't preclude the existence of a 10X, just describes the rarity.
Even if people were to use a new term such as "3-Sigma Programmer" instead of "10X Programmer", the ensuing debates would still be the same.
To make peace with the "10x" label, I suggest people just think of it as a figure-of-speech instead of a mathematical term. We don't get hung up when people say "Star Wars IV was ten times better than Phantom Menace" or "I'm not even 1/2 the football player I used to be."
If you put them all on the same team as a 1x engineer, there will be the perception that one engineer is 10x most programmers.
Yes, this is why the 60 wealthiest people have as much wealth as half of the world combined.
If there are plenty of 0.1x engineers, then an x engineer is actually 10 times better. The units doesn't matter if the ratio keeps being the same.
If you were interviewing and on Monday you have a 1x engineer and 9 .1x engineers, you’d assert you met a 10x engineer. Then on Wednesday if you had 9 1x engineers and one .1x engineer, you’d assert you met a .1x engineer.
The dial on a binary 10x engineer goes to 2.
The dial on a hex 10x engineer goes to 16.