Out of the 50 ish devs I've worked with closely, I've seen two I would say are in the '10x' camp. They were relentless in writing solid, simple, bug-free code, and doing so faster than everyone else. They were also effective in communicating their work. i.e. They weren't head-down in the corner savants.
Their productivity was also significantly more consistent across a range of areas and task complexity, compared with other devs who would slow if working in an unfamiliar area or on a more complex task.
Finally, good (and bad) decision making compounds with software. The right high level approach can pay easily pay of 10x over time just as a bad approach will result in buggy, bad performing software, and multiple rewrites.
In short, this article does not match my experience.
People often forget that 10X does not (only) mean quantity, but most of all quality.
Also thinking in factors may not be the right approach here. We should look at it in a more binary way: Can a developer achieve the requirements or not? In most cases the magnitude of skill shows in what a developer can solve at all, not how fast he/she can solve it.
Their productivity was also significantly more consistent across a range of areas and task complexity, compared with other devs who would slow if working in an unfamiliar area or on a more complex task.
Finally, good (and bad) decision making compounds with software. The right high level approach can pay easily pay of 10x over time just as a bad approach will result in buggy, bad performing software, and multiple rewrites.
In short, this article does not match my experience.