I’ve never heard of this 10x thing but it reeks of “alpha male” exceptionalism that makes mediocre white boys feel powerful. Wherever these 10x people exist, I promise there are annoyed women and minorities having to take up the slack for them in every non-engineer aspect of their lives. The normal shit that’s beneath them because they must dedicate all waking hours to the grind or the world will fall apart. Meanwhile normal people have to actually cook, do laundry, make appointments, raise children, etc. and catch flack for not being productive enough compared to the 10x guy who avoids showers and adult responsibilities.

Without reading the article, my guess would be because they give their engineers enough time to do their best work.

Because progress is for the most part iteration?

Implying engineers are normal

I feel like part of the problem is that management wants staff that can do a wide range of tasks when it ends up creating a staff that can’t specialize in a small group of tasks.

I’ve seen plenty of times where people can operate well as a cog on a big machine, but fall apart when they have to work in roles that require a variety of skillsets. Larger engineering companies can typically create enough work for people to specialize in smaller tasks than smaller engineering companies.