They tend to be really smart and motivated people. For example, http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/gcnc/ is not just a good guide to CNC, it's an amazing guide where you realize he learned half the unwritten rules just by thinking about them. http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/rstory/ for the robots.
The author lcamtuf is a well-known security engineer and I was explaining, indirectly, that he's just inherently super-smart and curious and spends a ton of time figuring things out.
