Paul Graham
Rasmus Lerdorf
The world is full of ‘em.
You don’t need one of those as the maintainer. They can also just hire somebody to do it for them.
But you do need some number of successful geeks in advisory roles to keep the political class on target when the funding is allocated.
And who are they going to hire? Someone with people skills and accounting skills. That doesn’t need to be a tech person.
“People skills” mostly are detecting the group consensus and running with it. Not the type of leader you need in tech.
Geeks are known to fight hard for their independent opinions. Especially when it goes against the group opinion. You need the willingness to do so - if required - from a leader ... so not a pure people person.
What is required though is being a good communicator. Most geeks learn that very fast. If properly taught...
Accounting can be hired for pretty cheap virtually everywhere on earth.