&gt;<i>You pay your Engineers, basically, to provide you the service of &quot;knowing what&#x27;s best for you&quot;; to be your domain-specific nanny, making sure you don&#x27;t do something you&#x27;ll regret out of ignorance.</i><p>And what if it&#x27;s THEIR ignorance (e.g. of market opportunities) that prevents them from doing what you asked them to?<p>It&#x27;s not like all sysadmin issues can be judged by pure technical reasons, without business needs taken into account.<p>You want engineers&#x2F;sysadmins you discuss with you, warn you when you propose something they think is bad, but ultimately work FOR you, and do what you tell them to. They should never override you to make you &quot;you don&#x27;t do something you&#x27;ll regret out of ignorance&quot;. It&#x27;s your company after all.