For the most part there aren’t 10x engineers
But there are certainly 0.1x engineers
But there are certainly 0.1x engineers
But it's only a 10x state if you're doing the right thing, otherwise it's a -10x state, and that means you need to have already done the right amount of thinking and have a good intuition for what you're trying to do. (As long as you can recognize a failed experiment and revert, risk of being -10x isn't that terrible)