As one middle manager pointed out to us, at Apple the top managers are engineers. “We make everything into a business case and use figures to prove what’s good, whereas Apple is engineer-driven.” Top managers acknowledged to us that “there was no real software competence in the top management team”.<p>That stood out for me. Whenever I&#x27;ve worked with managers who didn&#x27;t understand the field, interactions have always gone something like this:<p>Manager: Can we deliver X?<p>Team: Sure, it will take 3 months.<p>Manager: Can we deliver X in 2 months?<p>Team: No, I told you 3 months.<p>Manager: I need it done in 2...<p>And how it proceeded depended a lot on how bone-headed the manager was. Sometimes they would effectively let someone competent on the team do the management. Sometimes they would just try to bully until they got the answer they were looking for.