Actually, let me put this another way... back in the original dotcom era, I worked at a startup that decided to write a BIOS. With the amount of hardware we'd be selling, it'd save a million dollars! Well worth six man-months or so of work, right? WRONG. That was six man-months of critical programmer time when the time and money was running out, and all we learned was that we couldn't do it in a 512k PROM (not with our design anyway), and upgrading to a 1mb PROM would have cost more than a license from Phoenix for their BIOS.
That's what happens when you let the inmates run the asylum.
Programmers are fools, for the most part. They don't understand what problem they're really trying to solve. We thought we were solving a cost-of-production problem for a fully scaled business. That wasn't the problem. The PROBLEM was NOT DYING. And that meant getting a working product out the door as quickly as possible, even if it cost more.
Programmers are fools, for the most part. They don't understand what problem they're really trying to solve.
That's a little harsh. I think it's fairer to say that they often don't have insight into the wider strategic objectives of the company, and that's as much a company failing as anything. I'm now a firm believer in sharing e.g. revenue numbers with everyone in the company and explaining why they're important - people are much more willing to accept things when they understand the wider picture.
That's what happens when you let the inmates run the asylum.
Programmers are fools, for the most part. They don't understand what problem they're really trying to solve. We thought we were solving a cost-of-production problem for a fully scaled business. That wasn't the problem. The PROBLEM was NOT DYING. And that meant getting a working product out the door as quickly as possible, even if it cost more.