Local supercomputer maker shuts down

...you obviously know nothing about startups, zbert. Yes, it's important for engineers to understand and support the business side, by which I mean marketing, sales, support, logistics, etc. However, as I already explained, this wasn't a failure anywhere within the company including the business side. It was a failure to attract investment, because the investors have their own financial crisis going on, and that's something that most engineers really aren't involved in.

It's very easy for those who have never actually entered the startup world to make up silly metaphors, but the fact is that the "gravity well" that a startup must overcome to achieve "orbit" is very deep indeed. It takes more than the average amount of ability and effort, and not a little luck, to climb out of it. Plenty of people join companies that are already in orbit - i.e. where others have already created most of the value - and then contribute nothing or even destroy value as they participate in that company's crash back down to earth. Others, it seems, call themselves entrepreneurs even though they've never actually entered the world of building and selling anything that others will pay for. Neither group is well positioned to criticize those who actually build or board the startup rocket, who clearly innovate and add value even if that's insufficient to ensure success in the worst economy anyone can remember.

Analyzing the causes of a failure is not elitist, zbert, and even if people who were already involved seem to be pointing fingers it's nowhere near as offensive as people who've never been involved in anything remotely similar pointing fingers from outside. Those who are afraid to climb themselves are often eager to "get ahead" by tearing others down, but it's a mean and petty kind of behavior that I'm sure everyone here can see through.