[bicknergseng]

Monkeywrench: brilliant people are 100 times more productive than average people?

My thought is that programming sees similar dynamics as the rest of the world. There are amazing people out there who build companies or change governments or move the world forward in a way that is beyond most individuals' mental capacity. Why would engineering be any different?

It is strange that the idea that "A good programmer is ten times more productive than an average programmer" is almost always taken out of the context of the human race as a whole.

[bicknergseng]

Continuing my thought pattern... I'd take 1 Tim Cook or Henry Ford over all the operations consultants and hackers and people in the world. That doesn't make average ops people worthless, nor does it mean that tactics that Cook or Ford have taken in the past can't be employed by almost anyone.

I think it really comes down to the ability to find a problem and invent a solution, a rare gift indeed.