There is always a problem creating the "must have" product when you have no idea what that product the consumer will consider to be "must have".

What I read into Joel's rant was that no-one wanted the product the first time around and the vendor couldn't believe how stupid the consumer was, so they tried again, and again and again.....

Its a tricky one because on one hand you can ask the consumer what they would consider to be really cool. This is likely to lead to an evolutionary product.

On the other hand you think you have a "eureka" moment that has a 99% chance of falling flat on its face and a 1% chance of producing a revolutionary product.

The problem with young programmers on high salaries is that there is a price/quality perception. He/She is earning mega-bucks therefore they must be a genius. That mentality worked brilliantly in the banking sector didn't it? Lending money to people who can't pay it back is stupid? You just don't get the new paradigm!

when these megabucks programmers are hired as CTOs will they have the experience for their role?

Old age isn't synonymous with wisdom but neither is high intelligence. I've seen some very bright people do very dumb things that a less talented person would look at and say "what sort of fool would do that"!

An inexperienced guy will say "the technology is cool, I've planned it all through, the go live date is next week"!

The experienced guy will say "the technology is cool but human beings are involved so we have some issues to solve. If it goes live it will be in Q4 and the backout plan is ;x'".