Not really, even with a venture backed company. The investors only care if they believe there will be paying customers, and at the end of the day those are people.
In many cases the customer and user are not the same (e.g. healthcare, Microsoft’s business, Google, et al)
> Your performance review is solid, of course, your deliverables unimpeachable, but something begins to feel increasingly off. Your colleagues are in more meetings, but your task list only grows longer. Your progress on said project is appreciated by your boss and team, maybe even your boss' boss, but never really recognized.
Hint: think of the widespread expression used in terrorism debates: "Lone wolf". It's a self radicalized/motivated individual acting independently and alone.
Lone wolves are not happy animals, though. They are less successful in hunts, they can’t take down large prey at all. They don’t generally produce offspring. They’re an unfortunate effect of the social structure of wolves, where young males who cannot find a place in the pack are expelled.
There are plenty of lone wolf developers, but you won’t find them in large teams. Or if you do, they’re dysfunctional. On their own, a lone wolf engineer is not generally able to complete large, important pieces of work. Some do! But they are exceptions.
Whether or not the natural world has such wolves, its a well formed fictional archetype.
You assume "lone wolf" types are "one trick ponies" who can't learn. You also assume the only interesting problem space for these people is technical/code.
The lone wolf has a big limitations in transitioning to scale:
1. managers do what the article suggested, and stay out their way. The lone wolf never gets the experience of being managed, so it is difficult to transition to manage others.
2. they don't get why others don't "get it". e,g the solution is clear , the code can be done in a day, the comprehensive system model in their head should be shared by everyone.... it takes time to understand that the average engineer works slow and steady on a small scale understanding.
I will suggest there is a lone wolf type manager too. This is not a productivity skill, but an adaptivity and mobility skill.
you need to think in a different plane of isolation. i would say the pure machiavellian manager is a lone wolf in that the relationships hold no weight as interpersonal relationships, only as functional relationships - no different to how you would manage and integrate code.
> i have been seen wolves accomplishing amazing feats and being sidelined for not being team players by mediocre leadership because the leadership did not get recognition.
Since the Covid theater, Stoicism is everywhere: that's why I don't read about it anymore because wherever the mass and Pavlov dogs head, the truth is elsewhere.
That's kind of a narrow take; the mainstream may be directed towards a good thing and just not have the depth to draw a benefit, its attention being superficial and fleeting.
E.g. the Pavlovian dog metaphor is quite a mainstream trope, but doesn't it carry an important message nevertheless?
If anything, I would say that fleeting takes and offhand dismissals are what determines and solidifies the mainstream's superficiality.
