[o1iver]

A lot of people have commented that they do not agree because most people could not come up with Git, invent (from other ideas) modern-day MapReduce, etc.

I don't agree that the article is wrong for those reasons. Those people who invent those things are able to do so because they have spent years learning the underlying principles. And this does not only apply to programming; it applies to any scientific field. Somebody mentioned Terry Tao; well I would say that Terry Tao is a "superstar" because he has combined talent and more importantly because he has studied maths for years.

Talent + (a lot of) practice = superstar!

Look at the story of Andrew Wiles's proof of Fermats last theorem. He is undoubtedly a talented person, but was able to complete that work because he had studied math for a long time and combined the insights of many fields into his proof. Practice and talent makes a superstar!