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I think this community and the tech world in general overvalues engineering and I say this as an engineer myself. In my experience engineering or technology ra

by slg 5y ago

I think this community and the tech world in general overvalues engineering and I say this as an engineer myself. In my experience engineering or technology rarely seem to be the reason for a company's success or failure. There are certainly outliers in which a tech is so incredible that it alone can build a company. There are also some engineering mistakes that can be too costly to fix later and people can always be negligent and not do something obvious like proper backups. However those situations are usually extremely rare. The most common engineering mistakes can be fixed with more money. Typically some other factors are what make or break a company. That is what leads to not having the money to fix those engineering mistakes.

jamil7 5y ago
I think this is generally true and agree 90% of the time although I've once seen the opposite in which what was otherwise a successful small SaaS severely underinvested in product. They had an MVP that they basically left unchanged for years and years while ramping up sales and marketing which worked for a while before competitors started popping up with better design/ux/perf/features etc.
omegalulw 5y ago
This seems like such a short sided take. For a company to be labelled a "tech" company the tech itself should be the product. For example Apple, people buy iPhones and apple stuff because they perform well (e.g. fantastic camera, displays, M1...) and they work well with each other. Certainly at this point Apples name gets people to pay a premium but that's still grounded in the quality of their stuff. You can pick similar examples across other tech companies too. For example, Netflix got their head start because of their streaming tech. > The most common engineering mistakes can be fixed with more money. That applies to pretty much all mistakes. > Typically some other factors is what makes or breaks a company. Tech is still pretty much at the top of that list, especially for "tech" companies.
- slg 5y ago
  I don't think that many people truly are choosing between an iPhone or Android phone based off the quality of the camera. I also don't think that Android phones are universally worse from an engineering perspective. Remember it wasn't that long ago that Apple designed a phone that lost reception if you held it the way that many people instinctually hold their phones. I think the differences between Apple and its competitors mostly comes down to different priorities and motivations. A product from a company that is committed to vertical integration is going to be vastly different than a product from a company that only exists to get you to use software which only exists to sell you ads. Also Netflix didn't have a head start because of the quality of their streaming tech. They had a head start because of the business decision to invest in streaming before their competitors did. That early decision led to the quality of their library which is what attracted customers which is what allowed them to reinvest in their tech. There are plenty of other examples. Twitter and Reddit come to mind as companies that had seemingly awful technology that would regularly fail. They succeeded through that. Companies like Facebook have certainly produced some good tech, but almost all of that has come after the company became a success. That is similar to Microsoft who got their big start selling someone else's tech.

by slg 5y ago

jamil7 5y ago

I think this is generally true and agree 90% of the time although I've once seen the opposite in which what was otherwise a successful small SaaS severely underinvested in product. They had an MVP that they basically left unchanged for years and years while ramping up sales and marketing which worked for a while before competitors started popping up with better design/ux/perf/features etc.

omegalulw 5y ago

This seems like such a short sided take. For a company to be labelled a "tech" company the tech itself should be the product. For example Apple, people buy iPhones and apple stuff because they perform well (e.g. fantastic camera, displays, M1...) and they work well with each other. Certainly at this point Apples name gets people to pay a premium but that's still grounded in the quality of their stuff. You can pick similar examples across other tech companies too. For example, Netflix got their head start because of their streaming tech. > The most common engineering mistakes can be fixed with more money. That applies to pretty much all mistakes. > Typically some other factors is what makes or breaks a company. Tech is still pretty much at the top of that list, especially for "tech" companies.

slg 5y ago
I don't think that many people truly are choosing between an iPhone or Android phone based off the quality of the camera. I also don't think that Android phones are universally worse from an engineering perspective. Remember it wasn't that long ago that Apple designed a phone that lost reception if you held it the way that many people instinctually hold their phones. I think the differences between Apple and its competitors mostly comes down to different priorities and motivations. A product from a company that is committed to vertical integration is going to be vastly different than a product from a company that only exists to get you to use software which only exists to sell you ads. Also Netflix didn't have a head start because of the quality of their streaming tech. They had a head start because of the business decision to invest in streaming before their competitors did. That early decision led to the quality of their library which is what attracted customers which is what allowed them to reinvest in their tech. There are plenty of other examples. Twitter and Reddit come to mind as companies that had seemingly awful technology that would regularly fail. They succeeded through that. Companies like Facebook have certainly produced some good tech, but almost all of that has come after the company became a success. That is similar to Microsoft who got their big start selling someone else's tech.