You can actually do it (and some projects have managed to do so) but it requires having really good fundraising and admin staff and organizational support. Most

You can actually do it (and some projects have managed to do so) but it requires having really good fundraising and admin staff and organizational support. Most people in open source with a couple of random projects on github aren't good at that. And if you were a capable and well-connected individual who can consistently solve the funding problems, a lot of companies would be lining up to hire you and I doubt you'd be wasting your time with a bunch of volunteers moonlighting on hobby projects.