Has it really been that long? Apparently so. Valve originally announced their rebranding of Steam Play with Proton back on August 21st, 2018. Seems like a good time for a quick reflection being halfway to a decade old now with the tech that gave rise to the Steam Deck.
They directly hired people to work on it… how else would you describe “putting efforts into” when a company does it?
You can’t say Mcdonald’s CEO put effort in his work because he hired people to make the food. See how dumb that sounds.