So here's a question: what's stopping engineers from behaving more like a profession? Is there something inherent about engineer owned consultancies that makes them unstable? If you look at accounting, consulting, law, or finance, even the biggest organizations are structured internally like small partnerships. There is of course a certain set of crazy internal politics that goes with that, but one dynamic that is pervasive in engineering that doesn't really exist in those organization is: "my boss just doesn't get what I'm doing." If you're a young, talented banker at Morgan Stanley, not only is your boss just as talented, technically, as you, but he's got a 8-10 year head start on you in the experience department.
It's not really clear to me what market forces push engineering companies to be a somewhat odd amalgam of "idea people" and "execution people." If I've got an interesting idea, why do I need to hire a bunch of engineers? Why can't I just hire a firm of highly experienced engineers who can execute my product. On the idea side that would free idea people from the burden of HR, and on the execution side that would allow highly skilled engineering teams to build up valuable institutional knowledge that could be passed down to new recruits in a structured way, instead of all that collective experience scattering to the winds every time some startup fails and the engineers head to other projects.
Secrecy is keeping it this way. Every startup wants to believe that their thing, or their idea, is the most amazing thing on planet earth, and they hide it away and don't let others touch it.
It's not really clear to me what market forces push engineering companies to be a somewhat odd amalgam of "idea people" and "execution people." If I've got an interesting idea, why do I need to hire a bunch of engineers? Why can't I just hire a firm of highly experienced engineers who can execute my product. On the idea side that would free idea people from the burden of HR, and on the execution side that would allow highly skilled engineering teams to build up valuable institutional knowledge that could be passed down to new recruits in a structured way, instead of all that collective experience scattering to the winds every time some startup fails and the engineers head to other projects.