On talent and 300x programmers.
How do you find talent 300x productive than the benchmark?
In Eat People Andy Kessler describes the magic formula behind 10x technology industry employees and intelligence.
4 factors that define how our brains are laid out. The variation amongst these ranges that differentiate truly gifted from the ordinary.
31 years of working with the technology industry in Mena, US, UK, APAC and East Africa, I have run into maybe 4 individuals who met the criteria of a 10x programmer. Talent that didn’t write code but wrote poetry. Fire and forget missiles, that you can assign work to and forget about it. I had always wondered what was beneath the hood in those engines.
The truth was they weren’t 10x programmers. The scale was actually 300x.
Based on chapter 9, Embrace exceptionalism in Eat People. Which itself is based on Andy’s discussion with William J. Raduchel and Elements of Software Science by Maurice Halstead.
If you are interested in talent or talent management in the tech space you should look the book and the referenced chapter.
One. Clock Speed. Stroud Number
The first is clock speed — varies between 5 and 20 for most. Or a ratio of 1 to 3.
Fastest to slowest refers to how quickly can we think and process information (aka the Stroud Number).
You could be brilliant but slow. Or fast yet stupid.
Two. Linked List Memory.
The 2nd is Linked List Memory — our ability to track chunks of information or memory at one time.
Varies between 3–12 pieces or lists. A ratio of 1 to 4. Think of it as your ability to keep track and execute multiple items at the same time.
Three. Thought generators.
The 3rd is thought generators, templates, patterns or processors — varies between two to ten with an average of 5.
Think of this as a template of existing thought. Most work we do is modified templates. More template, more thoughts.
Four. Length of unit of memory. Halstead length
The 4th and final element. The length of a unit of memory or the Halstead Length.
Averages around 250. Enough to track 50 lines of FORTRAN code.
Compared with the best of the best programmers clocking in with lengths of 60,000+
The first 3 parameters may explain a variation between 1 to 4. The last one, the Halstead length is good enough to explain 300x.
The bigger the length, the bigger the problem you can hold in your head and solve it.
Link this back to our assessment and entry tests. What do we test for — math, speed, accuracy, brain teasers, problem solving ability, comprehension, expression? Were you ever tested for Halstead length?
How do you test for Halstead length? How would you design such a test?
Design. Large bandwidth problems. The ability to drill down to the signal amidst a lot of noise. The process one uses to break down problems into smaller solvable sub problems.
Looking back this all makes sense. The best talent can simultaneously break a problem down into bite sized sub problems and hold them all together in their head to roll it up into a final solution.
