People are reacting badly to the idea of 10* engineers because it goes against the idea that we are all equals and can all make it.
I see it as a political stance, For some reason a lot of developers seem to believe in the idea of "equality of outcome" which means that we should all have similar outputs and if for some reason some of us are more productive it must be because of some systemic prejudice.
I personally believe that there are excellent developers out there. Some of them are brilliant jerks but some of them are also brilliant developers without being jerks. Those later ones are the real 10* engineers.
This is also how I perceive the 10x discourse. The Twitter thread - much more so than this HN thread - was quite revealing of this political/worldview aspect. Liberal views tend to encourage us to think that we are all equal and have the same opportunities. And obviously the idea that there are coworkers out that literally "10 times" as productive goes against this and receives a hostile reaction.
I see it as a political stance, For some reason a lot of developers seem to believe in the idea of "equality of outcome" which means that we should all have similar outputs and if for some reason some of us are more productive it must be because of some systemic prejudice.
I personally believe that there are excellent developers out there. Some of them are brilliant jerks but some of them are also brilliant developers without being jerks. Those later ones are the real 10* engineers.