But when Steve says things like this "if you go to New York City and get an average taxi cab driver versus the best taxi cab driver, you’ll probably get to your destination with the best taxi driver 30% faster. And an automobile; What’s the difference between the average car and the best? Maybe 20% ? The best CD player versus the average CD player? Maybe 20%"
I mean where is that coming from? The numbers are totally arbitrary. Where's the backup for that? That's not even the same as even saying "we had a trade show booth in the front at MacWorld and consistently did 30% better in leads then when our booth was in the back and anecdotally our friends reported the same rough advantage".
I'm not arguing that there aren't obviously programmers who blow the socks off of "average" programmers (or that this can't be proven). Or that an experience taxi driver will get you to where you are going faster. What I object to is the use of numbers as Steve did to prove his point when there is in fact no backup for those numbers. (Is there? If so I haven't seen it).
I think he's trying to use numbers to illustrate his point, but he's not declaring anything empirical. When asking “Maybe 20%?” the implication is it is at most 20% better, but certainly not 50% and never 100% better.
But when Steve says things like this "if you go to New York City and get an average taxi cab driver versus the best taxi cab driver, you’ll probably get to your destination with the best taxi driver 30% faster. And an automobile; What’s the difference between the average car and the best? Maybe 20% ? The best CD player versus the average CD player? Maybe 20%"
I mean where is that coming from? The numbers are totally arbitrary. Where's the backup for that? That's not even the same as even saying "we had a trade show booth in the front at MacWorld and consistently did 30% better in leads then when our booth was in the back and anecdotally our friends reported the same rough advantage".
I'm not arguing that there aren't obviously programmers who blow the socks off of "average" programmers (or that this can't be proven). Or that an experience taxi driver will get you to where you are going faster. What I object to is the use of numbers as Steve did to prove his point when there is in fact no backup for those numbers. (Is there? If so I haven't seen it).