Jacob Kaplan-Moss: The Talent Myth at The Wharton School.
Channel: Tim Allen
Date: 2015-07-17

Jacob Kaplan-Moss is known for his work on Django, but, as he would describe in his PyCon 2015 keynote, many think he had more to do with its creation than he actually did. The theme of that keynote was something that software development organizations—and open source projects—may be grappling with: a myth about developer performance and how it impacts the industry.

Jacob drew on his early experience with Django, his own accomplishments as a long distance runner, and talent acquisition and retention challenges that he’s observed throughout his career, to illustrate how the talent myth sets an "impossibly high bar for entry". The fact that any of us are here at all, "is kind of shocking given this myth". It needs to be dismantled and a community that recognizes that "average is actually pretty awesome" should be built in its place.

Jacob self-identifies as a mediocre programmer and invites others to join him; "together we can do our jobs perfectly adequately".