I don’t think it’s that people have a problem admitting that there are significant outliers. It’s that there’s a backlash to the fetishization of “hiring 10x programmers” and most people claiming to be one really aren’t.

I know I’m good at it, but I am not and will probably never get to 10x on just writing code. I’ve worked with people who have a better claim to being a 10x. And having seen that, I have also never encountered any company that claims to hire 10x engineers that actually has a process to consistently hire even 1-2x engineers.