[Turbots]

I was an engineer for 15 years and have been a tech presales for 4 years now. You couldn't be more wrong.

Best engineers making the best product ever will not make a dollar without good sales people and marketing and product managers and VC and ... You need ALL of these to make a succesful company.

[paulryanrogers]

This has been my experience as well. Some word of mouth counterexamples exist yet are not the norm.

I think it's especially hard to appreciate sales+marketing since they seem so ephemeral while tech is concrete. Sadly there also also too many examples of marketing getting too far ahead of the product, over promising, or devaluing engineering.

Best is definitely a balance, where all sides respect others' work and can see both the effort and its benefits.

[Aeolun]

Marketing/sales is fine. As long as they sell what we have, not a pie in the sky that we might at some point in the future have.