[ClearCase_guy]

He divided the world into two groups: “Insanely great people” and “crappy people.”

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor scarcity)states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

The insanely great people matter. They are few in number, but they will do 80% of the work. I've seen management focus on the crappy 80% and try to turn them into insanely great people. It never works. I think management should shower attention on the best people, consider most of the staff as just deadweight. Because that's what they are. And if management showers attention on the deadweight, they will have nothing to show for it -- and the insanely great people will start to leave because they feel unappreciated. You really don't want that.

[TheDandyMan]

Maybe 20% are insanely great, but 80% aren’t deadweight — probably 20-30% are deadweight, and 50-60% are on the spectrum from almost-great to competent to nearly-deadweight.

It’s a mistake to undervalue the top 20%, but it’s also a mistake to assume everyone else is garbage and treat them as such.

[Moonman62]

This is also how Musk gets things done. He’ll have one genius work on a very difficult problem rather than twenty average people.

[ctdonath2]

“The insanely great people matter. They are few in number, but they will do 80% of the work. I’ve seen management focus on the crappy 80% and try to turn them into insanely great people. It never works. I think management should shower attention on the best people, consider most of the staff as just deadweight. Because that’s what they are. And if management showers attention on the deadweight, they will have nothing to show for it — and the insanely great people will start to leave because they feel unappreciated. You really don’t want that.”

This.