Honestly, may be an unpopular opinion but I disagree with the ideal path. This may be on-paper the correct path for this sim, but in my experience this will lead you to bad career + team outcomes. There's better options based on my experience:

1. If the junior dev is really that critical for a large project for some bizarre reason (fix that next time), tell Gary he's critical to that and say you can realloc ppl to cover or do this task under a 1hr time limit if it's urgent (if exceeds then kill the task). 2. Say to Gary next time let me know directly rather than dm someone on the team so you can route it to the right person (buys trust, covers team). 3. Renewal of BigCo is important to the biz. You should have some room to accommodate requests like these without being a stone to adhoc requests. It will not buy you or your team favour at all. Remember, this is a startup!

I don't think this is unpopular at all—I think it’s actually the 'Senior/Pragmatic' view.

This highlights a key distinction: The simulator is designed to teach heuristics (e.g., 'Default to protecting the team'), not a rigid playbook. In a real startup, specific contexts (like 'BigCo Renewal') often override the default heuristic.

You nailed three critical nuances that the default path glossed over:

Bus Factor: If the Junior is the only one who can pull the data, that's an engineering failure on my part.

Business Alignment: In a startup, 'Revenue' > 'Sprint Integrity.' Being a 'stone' to revenue-critical requests is a fast way to lose influence.

The Middle Path: Your suggestion (Timebox/Reallocate) is the advanced move. It solves the VP's pain without wrecking the sprint.

Thanks for adding this perspective—it shows exactly where 'Best Practice' meets reality.