I guess part of what you are saying is, that getting that task done was not so important for Dropbox in the grand scheme of things.

In the case I described, it was life and death for the entire organisation (proprietary hardware platform was EOL'd, so cero possibility of growth), and the managers that led it (and trusted 4 interns to do the ground work!) got rewarded handsomely AFAIK.

Thanks for a great writeup and clarifications!