Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

The cost to hire/keep the 10x dev was never constrained by low-end/median housing prices.

...ah, I think that was a misreading. I'm not sure I find the argument very compelling, though — I don't think creativity scales quite as well as productivity with better tools, and insofar as we've built taller ladders we've also grabbed more of the low-hanging fruit.

I think you also do see a qualitative difference in creativity with better tools. Think ipad+pencil vs MS paint. I hate to even go down this line of thinking because I completely agree housing is killing SF. Maybe I want to just inject some small dose of optimism :P

Agree 100% that "free" capacity has accumulated across the board for devs & that better tools can enable qualitatively different output (though I'm not sure drawing tools are a great example). I'm taking issue specifically with the "2 devs are as good as 5" claim

Ah, well from a “productivity” standpoint i think it’s fairly evident (eg see Mythical Man Month), but much less clear to me how to evaluate creativity. I’m ambivalent there. I certainly know of cases where the marginal 3 devs would add no (or negative!) further creativity.

Is there any practical evidence that substantially smaller effective teams are producing novel work these days? That's the sort of question that starts to address my concerns...

My favorite recent example is @NotionHQ The whole product team is ~5 people (https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/ivan-zhou-notion-interview/ …) Also, coincidentally, in SF! Also, whatsapp. Nothing further than anecdotal though, i concede. I think the cultural baggage is taking a while to wear off.

I love Notion, but historically it hasn't been uncommon for teams that size to launch successful software products. AFAICT the ballpark for founding teams has been pretty stable, which is why I'm questioning the assertion that cutting them in half would have negligible impact