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That is part of what makes this whole article so absurd to me. John Carmack or whatever other 10x employee is never going to work to sell your ads, or share your photos, or anything.

A 10x programmer is a genius who understands the business well enough to pull ideas out of the air and has the chops to make them real. They're running their own companies. And if they join companies, they join for ownership stake.

Yeah, that example sounded wrong. I'd say Oculus Rift is better off with Carmack than 100 average programmers doing the same stuff.

It depends on the program you are trying to develop. If you are trying to develop a typical business application 10 good developers could probably accomplish as much or more than John Carmack. But if you are trying to develop a game, even 1000 good programmers could not together accomplish what John Carmack could accomplish single handedly.

Agreed. I also wouldn't be surprised if he got paid >100X the average programmer with Oculus in the end as well.