Explaining tech's notion of talent scarcity

The article argues that companies benefit from different talent distributions (normal, Pareto, or bimodal) depending on the problems they solve, and that the common "top talent" framing assumes a Pareto model. It contrasts McKinsey's 1998 "war for talent" report, which sought the top percentile of "high-IQ generalists" (A-players), with software's "10x developer" idea, where a few singular specialists are seen as irreplaceable. Bimodal companies, the article says, compete for "linchpins," who are rare, highly specialized people and are more common in creative industries and some software infrastructure work.