"The common failing of programming groups today is too little management control, no too much"
-F. Brooks in the mythical man-month
A-kill-ease,
Is this still true today? True in your experience? Would it have been corrected simply by the addition of technically-skilled managers, as you suggest, or were there too many other things wrong to begin with?
This situation sounds like a classic example of what happens when someone throws a bunch of money (and not much else) at a business opportunity. Unfortunately for most hackers, we don't often get opportunities in startups like this until AFTER the infusion of cash with all of its inherent problems.
