In most startups I’ve worked at, the engineers have for the most part been the ones yearning to work on more sustainable strategic solutions to problems, but it

In most startups I’ve worked at, the engineers have for the most part been the ones yearning to work on more sustainable strategic solutions to problems, but it’s the pressure from the rest of the business to ship ASAP that forces everyone into a tactical execution mode. There’s always been an emphasis on the numbers that need to go up, in order to make the fundraising deck look good so that the company can keep existing; whilst focusing on the long term can often temporarily have a negative impact on numbers (or at least stall them), such that those accountable for those numbers will never sign off on it. Yet these companies ended up as unicorns, so they’re at least doing _something_ right.