They gained the influence through being really really good at what they do. They don't command it though by illegitimate means. I regularly disagree with Greg,

They gained the influence through being really really good at what they do. They don't command it though by illegitimate means. I regularly disagree with Greg, Luke, and Pieter; while I don't always come around to their 'side' completely, I always learn something new about how the system works/functions or considerations I hadn't made. That's why they seem so influential on the core team; through a big 'peer review' process, most of the 'top'* engineers in this space respect them a great deal. * not trying to appeal to authority, but you can go compare across all competing clients and see who is contributing the most meaningfully _to you_ and contrast that with who listens to gmaxwell and sipa.