I'm going to ignore the personal attack and get right to the point. If you redefine '10X' to involve impact, speed, or innovation, then you're going to invite external factors of chance (popularity, adoption, etc) and the work of others in building the tools the individual engineer uses - albeit perhaps more effectively than others. Further, they did not 'write' a 'popular software' in days - it was an early prototype that took years to gain the momentum it has now, as I was saying. Trying to credit Linus for all of git is very much like trying to say that the author of a book on which a critically acclaimed movie is based is an amazing filmmaker. You simply can't credit single people for the work done by more than one person. Nuclear though they may have been to the work being there, their impact is far less than you would suggest. There are >10X teams and times and there are engineers who fit particular >10X teams and who are more likely to fit others, but there are no lone >10X engineers.