This article inaccurately lumps all software companies into one bucket. As rohamg points out, he makes a black and white argument about engineering vs. sales po

This article inaccurately lumps all software companies into one bucket. As rohamg points out, he makes a black and white argument about engineering vs. sales politics, while the reality is that this differs a lot by company. In fact, many of the larger software companies seem to be driven primarily by sales (including, increasingly, Google). At the smaller companies (incl. startups), it absolutely makes sense for engineering to be of primary importance. At this level, being able to constantly adjust to customers' desires is essential, and an engineering emphasis helps with that. This also flies in the fact of the supposed arrogance of engineers. If anything, I think sales people are the more arrogant ones: they think customers just need to be sold on a product, while engineers understand iterating on feedback is key to growth.