Comment by SiempreViernes

That devs might show a 10x spread in time to completion on some task (the mythical man month study) is quite a lesser thing than claiming the spread comes from something inherent to the devs that got tested.

As for your various anecdotes later, I offer the counter observation that nobody is going around talking about 50x lottery winners, despite the lifetime earnings on lotteries also showing very wide spread:. Clearly observing a big spread in outcome is insufficient evidence for concluding the spread is due to factors inherent to the participants.