We hear this a lot and somehow feel it's true but there are no reliable metrics and little verifiable data so ultimately it's just talk.
It certainly seems like there is an element of truth to the numbers, but I think they tend to be both drastically overstated (there are fewer cases where there is a drastic difference and/or the difference doesn't matter) and drastically understated (there are cases where one developer can accomplish something that another simply can't, making the difference infinite).
So much time is spent trying to point out and quantify this difference, often in an implicitly self-congratulatory manner, and I think it would be better off spending that energy on:
1) Figuring out how to quantify developer skill, or at least come up with roughly accurate ways to determine whether or not a developer is appropriate for a given task. We, as an industry, are pretty bad at this.
2) Figure out ways to move more developers from the B & C camps into the A camp, insofar as we can actually identify those distinct camps.
Maybe I'm out of step with the recruiting community but are there people who are sitting around going "let's round up some really mediocre candidates?"
There are a lot of people going "let's round up the cheapest candidates we can find".
Said cheap developers will eventually wind up costing the company more than they make back.
Further, if the distribution really is very skewed and A players are rare, then I would put forth that the A players are vastly underpaid.
Putting aside the productivity arguments, talking about the immense value you place on your employees while (possibly) conspiring with your competitors to keep salaries low is awfully unethical. [1]
[1] http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-01-20/tech/30645933...
As a side note, it looks like that video is also available on YouTube:
Are you offering that as a poor example of a counterargument? Because I think it's countering the wrong argument here. His point is not to hire A players because A players make great products.
His point is that A players in software development are unexpectedly significantly better than average players, when comparing to A players and average players in other industries. As such, anyone who is able to attract and work with A players in software development get an inordinate advantage over the competition.
I think the key word that defines his intentions is inordinate. If you can't work with A players, you may have already lost.