Yeah, that is not how the blender institute works.
The question how to balance spending on Blender features vs dependencies is a legit one though. Blender "is killing it" because for years they never chose the easy fix or the low hanging fruit over sustainable changes.
In addition to that the Blender dev community is really goal oriented. Not many holy cows, everybody is just focused on the result. Imagine how Blender's 2.80 changes would've panned out in any typical Open Source project — often they can't strike the balance between old and new users, a lot of bikeshedding, infighting, forks, ...
Blender is killing it because there is a great community that is focused on the results. The influx of money could also have derailed the Blender project, but it didn't, which is further proof that they are doing something right.
The question how to balance spending on Blender features vs dependencies is a legit one though. Blender "is killing it" because for years they never chose the easy fix or the low hanging fruit over sustainable changes.
In addition to that the Blender dev community is really goal oriented. Not many holy cows, everybody is just focused on the result. Imagine how Blender's 2.80 changes would've panned out in any typical Open Source project — often they can't strike the balance between old and new users, a lot of bikeshedding, infighting, forks, ...
Blender is killing it because there is a great community that is focused on the results. The influx of money could also have derailed the Blender project, but it didn't, which is further proof that they are doing something right.