Quote from Hamming’s talk transcript:
When your vision of what you want to do is what you can do single-handedly, then you should pursue it. The day your vision, what you think needs to be done, is bigger than what you can do single-handedly, then you have to move toward management.
I think there is another intermediate step. Work with a team of peers. Not sure how this works in research (which is the context in which Hamming said this) but it certainly works when you are building things.