The software is not really doing what the customer wants if it does not work reliably. The company dies because their the product they sell does not do what the

The software is not really doing what the customer wants if it does not work reliably. The company dies because their the product they sell does not do what their customer wants. If you buy a car, you care about the quality if the parts indirectly. No one wants a car that works 50% of time. Same goes for software. So yes, poor code can kill the company, because the product does not work. "However, startups don't fail because the codebase is ugly, or convoluted, or not following best practices." Yes and no are both right I suppose, depending on the viewpoint.