I could get a programming job since I have a CS degree and a few years development experience... but instead I choose to work a non-programming part-time job while coding my startup. I've been coding it for 6 months without showing anyone my demo. (it's a big project)
If I get investors this summer or not... I'm committed to "my vision" for the next 3 years. Bills aren't too hard to pay if you live minimally. (e.g. I don't own a cellphone)
"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life. All that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about." - Albert Einstein
Note, that's not always engineering, but sometimes it's hard to get product management looking beyond current sales needs, and therefore it does fall on engineering to do the strategic work.
IMO, it doesn't matter who does the strategic work, sales, product management, or engineering, as long as someone is doing it.
(I imagine that this may be perceived as an extreme stance. To that I can only say: “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” - Jiddu Krishnamurti)
There's an interesting anti-pattern I see in business time and time again...it's the company that's run as follows:
1) Start with a successful product (regardless of how it happened to become successful) and put a top-tier MBA guy in charge
2) Slowly fire or alienate all of the engineers who had anything to do with the initially successful product (too expensive!), replace them with more sales guys and/or very cheap and incompetent "maintenance engineers" so abstract engineering vs. cost numbers can show diligent stewardship of the product
2b) Stop innovating entirely
3) Squeeze the product for cash like a vampire trying to squeeze blood from a stone
4) Eventually the product momentum runs out and the sales stop coming in
Making a new product is both hard, and expensive, it's understandable that MBA types want to try and recoup that and make a multiplier on that initial investment. They're allergic to putting huge investments back in for a round 2 of innovation.
It sometimes works (see Oracle), but usually ends up with a failed company being sold off for parts.
Chrysler is a fantastic example, the First Generation 300 (2004) started out as a very popular car, selling over 110,000 copies in it's first year. A bad merger with Daimler-Benz later, Chrysler ended up in MBA-tastic Cerberus's hands in 2007. So what did they do with their almost 4 year old flagship that was selling over 120,000 copies a year? They let it sit for 2 more years. Nothing, no new models, no minor redesigns, no real updates. In 2008 sales were half, then in 2009 almost half again. It wasn't until 2011 that a new model finally came out, and it was a shockingly modest refresh after nearly 8 years and what happened? Sales almost doubled in 2012!
My point is that it's not that hard, a new front end, some cosmetic interior changes and a fancier CD player and if doubled product sales. Why didn't they do that at any time in the preceding few years? They were simply working too hard trying to squeeze blood from stone.
At the risk of being influenced by survivorship bias, Apple under Jobs is the counter argument to this. It's an example of what happens when you ruthlessly pour resources into keeping products fresh. But somehow this lesson seems to escape so many product companies (tech or other industry).
Perhaps a better non-tech example is Coca-cola. Sure it's more or less the same product, but Coke spends extraordinary amounts of money keeping their brand fresh, slight changes in bottle shape, even slighter changes to the logo and packaging, effectively putting a new front-end on their product. It's one of the most valuable brands in the world.
I won't give a synopsis because it is a really short article - but here (IMO) is the key sentence and take away: "...ultimately, moving numbers around can do only so much. Over the long haul, you've got to invent or improve real products and services to grow."
The author of the article references a book written by Bob Lutz called "Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business"[2], which contains numerous examples of how replacing executives from engineering backgrounds with executives from more traditional business backgrounds failed GM as a strategy.
[1]- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2081930,00....
[2]-http://www.amazon.com/Car-Guys-vs-Bean-Counters/product-revi...
But you don't need to run a business like that. Sure, you can be a blood-thirsty profits vampire. Yet still make investments into product development that will allow you to have more blood to suck in the future. I'd say its a balance between profit/innovation, which Jobs became good at.