I really like the example of the non-technical CEO being talked into buying something, for the opposite reason projectazorian intended. There are in many cases hidden business dynamics driving those decisions that make them globally optimal, even though they look like local extrema to Joe Engineer. Mutual backstratching with investors and board members, for example, gets a lot of shit done. The real system is much wider than the one most engineers see, and in that wider system the non-technical CEO may just be the best engineer of all.

Or they may be an idiot. That happens, too.