Devils advocate from a throwaway for reasons; Pat foisted VMWare on a small startup trying to find its engineering footing culture wise, after being invited in to advise on the business side (loan his name mostly).

Cost a bunch of engineering time and forward motion, internal politicking. Eventually it got binned after months of not getting what we wanted out of it. There was no technical reason for it.

Maybe hardware really is his thing, but that quid pro quo hurt productivity.