Oddbean

We need to expand the concept of "builders". Is the only builder the person who owns the repo, or does it include, in a wider sense, the people helping that person work more efficiently and effectively? Can we define project teams? Or are we destined to stay every-dev-for-himself? I mean, as nice as it is to be a dev, being the Product Owner and Senior Dev of a project team is probably even nicer. Just saying. Think about where you want your project to be next year or in 5 years. Will you get there alone?

I guess that's the difference. Public status, from users and funders and journalists, comes from being Ze Dev. Support roles tend to only have "project-internal status". I.e. only the people working on the project care about their effort. So devs who give people in support roles the feeling that they care about their work, and that they're part of a team, will get more work out of them. Everyone else will get less. I've been slowly distilling my focus down to helping a few particular devs, because they seem to value it, most. I think those are the devs with the longest-term potential because they know how to motivate staff. They're the people I can picture running a company.