I don't know if giving developers more skin in the game is the appropriate response to this. I do think they should have skin in the game for their work but I just think it's unrelated to this thesis. Most developers don't really have a material impact on the success/failure of the project. And that's because my inclination is that most software projects fail not because of some technical reason, but because it couldn't find product market fit. That's not something that's really on the developer.

In fact, I'm not sure it's on anyone. There's inherent risk in every project, and the team's job is to maximize the probability of success. At least that's the way a process-first person would probably think about it.

Results-first folks might argue that a great team will find a way to succeed. And then definitely, having more skin in the game will help with motivation. But I still think even the best team is just maximizing probability of success, and still they're more likely than not going to fail, because getting PMF is hard.