[b_t_s]

You could have a kid(assuming you're in that demographic). Then you'll be so short on time/energy that you can't possibly want to spend your evenings/weekends on moonshot coding projects. I'm being a bit facetious of course, but "engineers that cared nothing for the tech or the work" can also be interpreted as "mature engineers who have full/busy lives outside work and have learned the importance doing a solid weeks work moving the companies objectives forward and then dropping it to maintain their own mental health and avoid neglecting their families." I was talking about this yesterday with a coworker who said basically "Wow did my perspective on older workers who go home at 5:00 sharp change as soon as I had a kid." So just keep in mind that many of us have a radical and involuntary shift in our relationship with work/programming right around 30yo, in case you're approaching that transition.