Productivity premium

There has been a great deal written about the productivity gap between the most talented and those possessing less talent. For the most part, it is true that highly skilled, talented individuals can produce 10 to 20 times more, and better, work than those at the bottom of the scale [1]. This discussion started in the late 1960s and was focused on programming when the dialog began, but research over the past five decades has illustrated that this phenomenon is prevalent in a wide range of human endeavors. "A study by Norm Augustine found that in a variety of professions – writing, football, invention, police work, and other occupations – the top 20 percent of people produced about 50 percent of the output, whether the output is touchdowns, patents, solved cases, or software." [2]

This dynamic is the same and may even be more pronounced in advanced analytics and AI teams. Talented and skilled people are better at all aspects of the job...