I don’t know. I’ve been in the position of being an “X-builder” (I’m a dyed-in-the-wool compiler engineer), and I’ve been through something like what she descr

I don’t know. I’ve been in the position of being an “X-builder” (I’m a dyed-in-the-wool compiler engineer), and I’ve been through something like what she describes, and nothing about the decisions involved seemed as obvious (or as malicious/egotistical) as she makes it sound. Like, maybe I don’t quite want to build an X, but other engineers and managers have their own reasons why we should, and after we discuss/argue for a little while, I decide that, OK, fine, I don’t entirely agree but I’m willing to concede that maybe I’m wrong and give it a shot. The thing we end up building is OK, but not stellar. We have an outage or two but they’re minor and not an ongoing headache. We have a few wins but it’s not the runaway success we hoped. Maybe we should have gone with Y instead of building our own X? Would it have been better that way? Am I a charlatan? I don’t know.