Given how poor science reporting usually is, the "10k hours" rule as understood by the general public is almost certainly not what the original research had shown. That said, IMO to first approximation the rule's not wrong. It's just that you hit diminishing returns fairly quickly, i.e. your skill grows logarithmically, and 10k hours is roughly where the linear-ish part cuts off for most people. Of course second-order effects ("talent") affect how quickly you reach the cut-off, or how ahead / behind the curve after 10k hours. So take it as a rule-of-thumb, rather than some fundamental law.
Another sentiment you touched on about "guys who have been alive less time than [you] have been programming who can run rings around [you]": you are that guy for some other people. At the minimum, you might as well be a wizard compared to people on the other side of the threshold (and IMO that's one reason why pop-culture representation of "hacking" looks so ridiculous). In Go (as in AlphaGo, not golang) I was encouraged to play against opponents that's slightly weaker, at my level, and stronger. I forgot the proportions, but the idea is that if you only play against weaker opponents you would never improve; only against even opponents you wouldn't improve as quickly; only against stronger opponents you would lose confidence and quit.
To close off with a Naruto analogy (b/c why not, I've already rambled for this long): you're like Rock Lee: he's clearly outclassed compared against the likes of Naruto, Sasuke, etc., but he's still one of the strongest jounin in Konoha, arguably the strongest hidden villages. I'm probably Shikamaru...
Another sentiment you touched on about "guys who have been alive less time than [you] have been programming who can run rings around [you]": you are that guy for some other people. At the minimum, you might as well be a wizard compared to people on the other side of the threshold (and IMO that's one reason why pop-culture representation of "hacking" looks so ridiculous). In Go (as in AlphaGo, not golang) I was encouraged to play against opponents that's slightly weaker, at my level, and stronger. I forgot the proportions, but the idea is that if you only play against weaker opponents you would never improve; only against even opponents you wouldn't improve as quickly; only against stronger opponents you would lose confidence and quit.
To close off with a Naruto analogy (b/c why not, I've already rambled for this long): you're like Rock Lee: he's clearly outclassed compared against the likes of Naruto, Sasuke, etc., but he's still one of the strongest jounin in Konoha, arguably the strongest hidden villages. I'm probably Shikamaru...