Do rock stars remain rock stars forever? Why do we often see situations when developers start as rock stars and end up being mediocre? What brings their downfall?
The short answer is indispensability.
Their downfall starts from the day they start becoming indispensable to the project. Work starts revolving around them and sooner or later they end up getting sucked into work from all sides. No meeting starts without them. No solution is complete unless vetted by them. They cannot go on vacation as nobody is there to cover for them. And the other developers get so accustomed to The Rockstar handling difficult problems that they become lazy and complacent.
