> And conversely there are plenty of startups (the majority even) that had excellent engineering but failed due to a myriad of other reasons. "Engineering = success" is a very naive view of the industry and the world.

You're putting up lame strawmen. No one claimed "Engineering = success".

The claim is that it is absolutely impossible to have a tech startup without engineers, and no idea, no matter how cunning it might be, can have success if engineering can't turn it to into reality.

A tech startup without engineering is snake oil. Simple as that. Let's not pretend that a salesperson parachuting into a startup with a product in the market can possibly have a comparable impact to those who actually deliver the actual product.