I witnessed this on the past two YC startups I worked at, on adjacent teams.
There was a very clear strategy laid out by the founders, but engineers were unable to follow it due to a filter added by a "layer" of management.
For example: In one specific case, a designer (!) was massively bloating the design and the scopes after being given carte blanche by the CEO and the absence of the PM. After a few weeks of missing targets where engineers got the blame, the tech team finally had enough and requested a review of the work methods of the designer. It was obviously all very fucked up. Basically weeks of lost work and a burned out team working overtime.
I witnessed this on the past two YC startups I worked at, on adjacent teams.
There was a very clear strategy laid out by the founders, but engineers were unable to follow it due to a filter added by a "layer" of management.
For example: In one specific case, a designer (!) was massively bloating the design and the scopes after being given carte blanche by the CEO and the absence of the PM. After a few weeks of missing targets where engineers got the blame, the tech team finally had enough and requested a review of the work methods of the designer. It was obviously all very fucked up. Basically weeks of lost work and a burned out team working overtime.