From a technical point of view, we're on the same page. But then there is the reality of modern software development. A few years ago, the new CTO of a Union S

From a technical point of view, we're on the same page. But then there is the reality of modern software development. A few years ago, the new CTO of a Union Square Ventures' investment tapped me as technical advisor to review this startups efforts to expand their software to new verticals. He came in as part of a reshuffle. He had brought his Director of Engineering from his previous (well known) company, and there was even a Star CEO (which is the reason I signed up!) with a monumentally impressive CV. As compensation, I was billing lawyer hourly rates. After two months of reviewing their existing architecture, and picking the brains of the dev, support, and sales team the new verticals, I came with an architectural solution to their immediate and long-term needs. I gave them exactly what they said they wanted. What then happened is that, for one, the Star CEO turned out to be an echo chamber of "growth growth growth" and entirely disappointing as a leader of a software company. And this was a SV veteran from both HW and SW side of SV. Huge disappointment. The CTO, who was entirely clueless, apparently gave in to back channel efforts of his DoE to disregard my work product. A few days later I walk into an all hands meeting where the "next generation" was announced to be "a ball of mud" of "microservices". This same CTO later took me aside and basically offered to give me hush money ("will you be my personal advisor?") to keep quiet, while getting the same (insanely high) hourly rate for the remainder of my contract. So this is the reality of modern software development. Architecture is simply not valued at extremities of tech orgnizations: the bottom ranks are young developers who simply don't know enough to appreciate thoughtful design. And the management is facing incentives that simply do NOT align with thoughtful design and development.