I wish someone had told me when I was a starry eyed college kid entering the workforce that by focusing on this one strategic decision, I could have gotten so much more out of the many 100 hour work weeks of execution. e.g.: Someone working long shifts at a restaurant is just as hard working as Elon Musk, the scale of Elon’s impact is just much bigger.

More practically, the original title got one upvote because it didn’t focus on the value of the article.

You’d likely be in high demand at other initiatives if you’re a top performer though. I’ve also seen friends incentivized to get them to stay specifically because the mission they came for became kaput.

I can totally imagine your situation play out though. Depends on the needs of the company at that stage + your perceived value.

But at the other end, think the person in charge of when Google search goes down in Europe. Or when Azure crashes for Disney. Or when AWS goes down for Netflix. How much do you think the people who are experts there get paid? I know two people who make 7 figures doing jobs like that. They are linchpins.