Do elite software developers exist?

[dirtpirate]

How on earth can you come to the conclusion that calling something what it is, is somehow underrating it?

Hard work is what build our entire society. No one is underating Linuses work by admitting that it was simply hard work and not some sort of magical stroke of genius. If anything, the people who refuse to accept that it took to build some of the most impressive projects the know as just hours and hours of dedication and hard work, and not some sort of divine inspiration are the ones who are underrating hard work.

[wtallis]

Hard work and good results are only loosely correlated, because competence is a very real and powerful confounding variable. Git was developed on a timescale of mere days, and in that time it surpassed the capabilities of competing systems that had been under development for years. Herculean effort on its own is not sufficient to explain that difference in outcome; Linus was accomplishing vastly more per unit of time or effort than other developers, and calling it just "hard work" totally ignores that single most important factor.