When we say generating code is only a small percentage, that does not imply that the rest is just talking. Simon, you were part of a relatively small fast moving project in Django and the news website it powered, with from I understand a pretty small team. Have you worked as part of a team of 10, 20, 100, 1000 engineers? It's different.

"Talking" here doesn't literally mean talking. It means figuring out the scope of the problem, researching solutions, communicating with stakeholders, debating architecture, building exploratory prototypes, breaking down projects - it's all the stuff that isn't writing the code.

I've worked at various sizes of organization. Most notably I joined Eventbrite when they were less than 100 developers and stayed while they grew to around 1,000.