[skeeter2020]

If you were realigning your SaaS company to ignore your technology short-comings and technical debt, and isntead focus on selling as much "AI-enabled <whatever>" while the rush still looks like gold, this would be a great strategy & announcement.

[brianwawok]

Tech debt is much less important than many developers think it is. More sales over chasing tech debt almost every time.

[bunderbunder]

I’ve seen many products die sudden, violent deaths due to unmanaged technical debt. If you have customers who care about quality and reliability, you simply cannot set up a false dichotomy between selling product and managing technical debt.

That said, I would also concede that over the past decade or two the clean code movement has made a damn strong effort of poisoning the term by trying to characterize technically inconsequential aesthetic concerns as technical debt.

[datsci_est_2015]

“Chasing tech debt” vs “more sales” is a false dichotomy. A dangerous one, too, if you simply expand “chasing tech debt” to “listening to engineering concerns”. That’s how you end up with a Boeing.

[dboreham]

Of course. But as an old sales guy used to tell me: "In the story, at the end the wolf shows up".