I think a human being is really only capable of like 6 hours of solid mental work throughout the day. And even that is tough, with all the distractions of modern life. When you take something like Adderall, that doubles to, say 12 hours and enables you to get hyper-focused on the task at hand. Sure, you can still get hyper-focused on the
wrong thing, but if you can reign that in you're golden.
Not only that, the amount of things you accomplish in that time span is far greater. So it really does turn you into a 10x engineer. If you're already very strong, experienced, pragmatic, etc.. then the stimulants will truly make you feel invincible.
So if you see a software engineer at a big company who is making 200k a year while simultaneously putting out dozens of open source projects a year, maintaining them, speaking at conferences, managing complex hobbies, etc... chances are that is due to a stimulant drug. I know very few people who are capable of that naturally.
Not only that, the amount of things you accomplish in that time span is far greater. So it really does turn you into a 10x engineer. If you're already very strong, experienced, pragmatic, etc.. then the stimulants will truly make you feel invincible.
So if you see a software engineer at a big company who is making 200k a year while simultaneously putting out dozens of open source projects a year, maintaining them, speaking at conferences, managing complex hobbies, etc... chances are that is due to a stimulant drug. I know very few people who are capable of that naturally.