Nobody said anything about what Steve should have been doing. Given that money is the core issue in his post and he's mentioned sweet SV dollars in this thread, it doesn't hurt to note the prevailing attitude these days which (largely) favors engineering and 'show me the code'. Good engineers have tremendous leverage and can command extremely good salaries. Evangelizers not really and as I said they _are_ often looked down upon by engineers.

Looking at Steve's 177 'source' repositories @ Github and disregarding documentation and presentations, there is absolutely nothing that can be described as substantial engineering. Throwaway code, small sample projects and tiny tutorials and more often than not, skeletons and incomplete beginnings. Yes the Rust book is excellent but at the end of the day, nobody who is in the position to give out SV $$ really cares. Had Steve spent his years using Rust to solve hard problems, he'd have recruiters banging on his door 24/7 but the fact is that documentation and hype on HN and reddit is not a good recipe for a solid career.

I don't know Steve personally and I have no dog in the Rust race, merely expressing what I have personally experienced working in SV for over a decade.