I’ve seen many cases where business people and technical people collide.  Part of building an effective business requires understanding and respecting the various departments in an organization and their individual areas of expertise.  But too often, cross-departmental decisions are driven by the wrong people.  The results are less than spectacular, though not unexpected considering the situation.  Here’s a link to a story about just such a situation:

No, We Need a Neural Network

Kudos to the man for two things.  First, trying to turn management away from a bad decision at every step along the way.  Second, for making a killing off the company when they failed to heed his warning.

To be fair, however, I should note that business people are not the only ones who engage in activities outside their expertise.  I’ve seen technical people try to make business and marketing decisions with similar results.