constantly changing strategy -- they were never able to go for it and execute. Engineering group had no experience building enterprise-class product -- built products that were engineer or CTO driven -- not customer focused. Metacarta wanted to be a cool company onto something big but the product and engineering folks kept getting in the way. Technology just wasn't there and eventually the customers found out (along with the sales guys) that engineering couldn't deliver. There were some really great people there at all levels in all areas of the organization. The problems were really the CTO driving the company into the ground by interfering into the decisions trying to be made by the business folks. Senior management didn't have the pedigree from MIT like the engineering team and because of that I don't believe the engineers respected the management -- they just weren't technical. But the engineers were in their first or second job out of college with relatvely little or no professional experience and it showed. Acted like primadonnas for the most part. No doubt that the sales trip to the tropics were seen as a management faux pas -- I didn't go but it sounded like any other club trip -- maybe there should have been one for the engineering team too but they probably would have found fault in that too or it wouldn't be good enough for them.