I'm going to take a stab at responding to this, to see whether it's the insufferable tone of the writing that bothers me, or something else. If we assume the a

I'm going to take a stab at responding to this, to see whether it's the insufferable tone of the writing that bothers me, or something else. If we assume the author is part of a team that makes software and has users, to "ship" for him or her is another way of saying "deliver a product that our customers will find valuable enough to use" and hopefully pay for. Do the people who use this software depend on it for any important purpose, or would its failure be inconsequential? Maybe I'm wrong with the assumption that the author wants to make a product people would pay for, since they lead with "we want a team of self-managing people who ship code." It doesn't say we want to make a business. It begs the question of Why? We ship to what end? Would it be less impressive to say, We just like to write software and want everyone to leave us alone? Why write an article and observe that your process creates too many half-baked features but do nothing to reflect on that and reduce waste? Why make the ridiculous claim that you don't value people who aren't programmers? What goal, if any, would such a statement help you reach? Why are we shipping so often (...customer feedback...?) if we don't care about anyone? And of course the pithy final line. So no, it's not just the tone that bothers me. It's the dismissive and plainly antagonistic approach to software development that says the creator is the only one with any worth. I'd be interested to know how the author might reflect on this piece today.