From the blog post: <i>Is this true? Are software developers “geeks” that lack clout and respect with the “business people”?</i><p>Oh, yes, absolutely. You don't see H-1B visas for "business people" or lawyers do you? That alone should tip off who's in charge. Those in charge are not going to import cheap replacements for themselves, only for those not in charge.<p>As for "why", I suspect that the significant fraction of programmers who don't play office politics (I grant that it's not all programmers, but a large portion of them) means that there's no respect. Also, I believe that "business people" are at least subconsciously afraid of getting automated out of existence, or of having their secret(s) stolen. So, they marginalize programmers. I think you also have to consider that scapegoats are necessary for large projects - major portions of any large project come in late and over budget, or maybe just wrong. Gotta have a scapegoat to hang that on. Programmers are an obvious target due to the lack of political savvy, and having to deal with the reality of hardware, software, etc. Hang blame on a convenient group often enough, and that group ends up not being respected.