10x programmers exist because the average programmer has very little productivity. A high-performing marathon runner can complete a marathon in about 2.5 hours -- if the average person ran a marathon in 25 hours, then that would be a 10x marathon time. This is the situation we find ourselves in with software, the bar is very very low.
But the same way no one ever runs a marathon in 20 hours, the average developer isn't 10 times slower than the most efficient ones either.
The situation we find ourselves with software has very little to do with the actual developer effectiveness: I've never witnessed a project that was slow to deliver because one developer was too slow, it's almost always organizational and management issues that slow down development teams. A poor developer in a functional team with good leadership will outperform a rock-star in a dysfunctional organization any day.
