for me, the moral of the story is that it's easier to promise things than to deliver them. or, engineering was the bottleneck. in my experience, this is not particular to start-ups, or even software engineering.

why does this happen though? i think it could be due to short-term thinking. like buying things with a credit card: you get the shiny new thing immediately, but the payment is diluted over time. likewise, once the sale is made, you may feel the reward immediately (though i guess it depends on the exact nature of the deal), but the work that will have to be done, will be done over time.

also, it's no wonder that the founder, or, outside start-ups, the marketing department, which specializes in promising impossible things, manages to evade the blame...