[pumblechook]

As Nielsen said, the ultimate goal of usability is cash. Unfortunately, this article comes off more as a designer rant, as if startups should invest in usability just because it somehow makes the world a better place.

When, in fact, the positive ROI of usability improvement has been established for awhile: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/roi.html

A good UX guy will realize this and design to the situation, rather than preach some esoteric heuristics.