My experience at Google (which matched other large companies I've been at) was more that the "smartest" (I.E. earliest) members of a team laid down so many road blocks for later members, in the form of tech-debt and undocumented knowledge, that the output difference between coasting and working yourself to death was pretty small. It's an easy environment to get discouraged in.
My fear is that is what I'm doing right now. I've been writing code alone for a while, it's very possible it will be hard for new hires to understand or update. I know there is tech debt but I don't have time to fix it (because I'm alone, natch).
Oh well. Maybe they can spend their time replacing my work.
My experience at Google was that until I decided the company was kinda directionless and started selectively ignoring leadership to get stuff done. Of course avoiding the "insubordination" line. Turns out they're still happy as long as you give them what they want in the end, or if not, what their boss wants. And I'm happy to see things work.
