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In my experience teams taking on significant challenges benefit from having a range of contributors. Thoroughbred racers have their place, but there are times when having a big and heavy load puller or even a small donkey or pony is just the right fit.

The really fast moving types don't like finishing every detail of the test suite or documentation and get bored with customer feedback and meetings. They are super mega A grade ten plus ex contributors and they know what that entails, so they are always on the forefront picking up the best tools, honing them as needed, and then moving on. They know how to take credit for their lead also.

Meanwhile more modest contributors handle details and it is less easy to quantify the value of actually running through the product with customers and finding critical bugs, catching embarrassing errors in documentation, or filling in important missing test cases and so on. Some products do okay without all the i dotting and t crossing, but too much reliance on the cutting edge of tech leadership tends to show up over time in tech debt and accumulated bug overhead.

As is said, you may be capable of great things, but life consists of small things.




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