“The person who knows how will always have job. The person who knows why will always be his boss”
Alanis Morissette
The world of an OSS has many compartments. If you know how (ie you become proficient) in one of those compartments, you probably have a niche that not many people will share, reducing competition for that job.
But if you have a broad enough understanding of your compartment, why it is important to your customers and perhaps even to their customers, then you become rarer still.
If you understand why across many compartments then you are one of the chosen few. Not many OSS organisations have more than a few of these types of people.
However, if you are one of the chosen few, I’m not sure that you should be “the” boss. You’re too valuable closer to the coal-face, setting the vision then guiding and mentoring others.