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Comment by bluefirebrand

4 months ago

> The first kind of quality is the only kind that matters in the end.

How easy it is to maintain and extend does absolutely matter, in a world where software is constantly growing and evolving and never "finished"

I'm not disagreeing with you.

Just an observation though:

There seems to be a world in software where "it works" well enough to grow a large user base to achieve a a large valuation and then dip out is also a viable option.

Growing/evolving the code does not matter because the product no longer matters after the founders have made a large sum of money.

  • I hear what you're saying; but the implications seem ... net harmful? If you're actively hacking something together with the intent of boosting a valuation, selling your company and GTFOing before your purchasers figure out the bag of unmaintainable garbage you've sold them, that ...

    You're harming:

      * your customers who trusted you
      * the people that purchased your product
    

    I think "grift" is a good term (GPT recommended 'predatory exit' as an alternative) for what a team that's done that has done.

    There’s nothing wrong with iterating fast or building MVPs. But when teams knowingly pass off a brittle mess to others, they’ve stopped building products and started selling lies.

    • > but the implications seem ... net harmful?

      I was not trying to imply that it was not. Just observing that when money is on the table there appears little incentive in some cases to build a good product.

      Or to follow good engineering practices because the founders & investors already made money without it.