The reason this argument doesn't hold water is because the underlying infrastructure supporting the company as a whole is just a commodity. There is nothing special about the food or the transportation or even the server infrastructure that the startup uses, it's all fungible and thus there is an efficient market around it.

But engineering and sales for a single product are inextricably linked. If engineering does not create a good product, that directly affects the success of the sales people; and vice versa if the sales team sucks then a great products potential value can go unrealized.