[robotkdick]

While it may be your full-time job, you're still participating in a larger mission, right?

Take the case of the legal problems with the React license that eventually were ironed out or the privacy issues facing the company more recently.

Neither of those would have been a factor in your day to day life if React was its own thing, right?

If no engineer has left the team, through their own will or through enticement, you have my apologies.

I'm not arguing that you're not committed. I'm arguing that working for a large company is a distraction, which is true of all large companies. Would you agree that the licensing issue was unnecessary and distracting?

Don't get me wrong, I think you're doing great work and React isn't going anywhere, but there's a broader mission there that is distracting from doing that one thing. Do you ever wish it were it's own thing (if money weren't involved)?

[spicyj]

Certainly there are downsides to any setup, but due to React Native's large ambitions I'm unsure if it could have ever been created by an independent community. There is a lot of work that goes into it and the abundant availability of complex real-world problems (to a greater extent than I've seen anywhere else) spurred by this setup pushes React Native to be a more capable project.

[robotkdick]

Thanks for the insight. I can tell from how you write about React, you're very dedicated, and I feel your passion.

Upper-level managers at the large companies I've worked for universally saw these types of projects as "cost centers" and tended to interfere in ways that demonstrated a basic misunderstanding of the value. I hope that's not true in your case.

[madeofpalk]

I think that when you actually work in a large company, you realise just how large it is. As in, org charts and different campuses and countries.

When I worked at an airline working on their websites, I wasn't privy to, or bothered by their flight scheduling or workplace relationship dramas.