Totally agree that the best stuff happens when vision and engineering evolve together. Some of the most creative breakthroughs I've seen didn’t come from someone executing a top-down plan, they came from someone who deeply understood the system and just noticed a better way.
Innovation is nearly always bottom-up but eventually ossifies in the corporate structures that envelop it (Skype was a great example).
I've not thought much about the relationship between vision and engineering but it does make sense of why early-stage, engineering-led companies have such a potent potential to disrupt industries.
I wonder if the environment is ripening for a new wave of start-up disruption. A handful of folk with vision and know-how actually do have the means to innovate in ways that confound the incumbents.
The momentum of a technology sector converging on the same patterns and practices starts to look incredibly vulnerable to faster moving teams of visionary engineers finding the missed opportunities.
