[nthj]

The 100x impact isn’t usually with proofs of concept, it’s with surgery. 1,000 lawyers would likely never identify and execute the life-saving graft, all while avoiding side effects that eventually kill the patient.

A surgical ten lines of code across 5 services can absolutely create billions of dollars out of thin air. The combination of technical, political and domain expertise required for such changes is relatively rare.

(I mean political in the purest, non-controversial sense, i.e. the communication skills to answer objections and acquire group consensus on the required change.)

[actually_a_dog]

I disagree for the following reason: without the proof of concept, the change in production would probably never come about. You can't really separate the impact of the proof of concept from that of the production change because they don't exist independently.