I say this having worked in the software business for coming on 15 years: I don't think an organization where business is calling the shots would be capable of

I say this having worked in the software business for coming on 15 years: I don't think an organization where business is calling the shots would be capable of building an Internet search engine. The entire project a fractal of this type of business-inscrutable engineering, and in any organization where engineers aren't calling the shots, that engineering isn't going to get done, and the project is going to be hideously slow and expensive as a result. In a parallel universe where I had gone the classic startup route and started out using the biggest off-the-shelf pieces I could find, gluing them together with python (instead of building a bespoke index); then thrown VC money at hardware at when it started struggling; even more when it struggled again; I'd be absolutely dumbfounded when it yet again hit a brick wall and my hardware cost is tens of thousands every month (as opposed to $100/mo now). Since I've instead built the solution from scratch, I've also built a deep understanding of both the domain and the solution, and when I'm faced with scaling problems, they're solvable in software rather than hardware. I can just change how the software works until it does. It's a slower route, but it's also able to take you places where conventional-wisdom-driven-development does not.