I think their statement (of developers acting for their own personal good) is overblown and shows a lack of understanding of software development. It's a reactionary publication predicating on the fears of not being agile enough in the new software development world.
The proof:
Their suggestions of using better metrics on development practices of the software being built.
Which is a ridiculous suggestion for anyone well vested in the literature of practical, real-world software engineering.
Measuring software development is inherently difficult.
What will you measure? lines of code? number of functions written? bugs fixed?
All of those are ridiculous and fail at any number of different approaches to software development (and are all easily gamed).
The problem is that there isn't a sure-fire way to measure how well a developer is doing without someone well experienced/knowledgeable walking through and checking everything
At which point, what would be the reason for having that person develop the software to begin with?
All that can come of this study are managers in corporations reacting to suggestions of improvements in software projects from good developers by shutting them down.
This will, in effect, make those corporations slower and less productive than any sensible startup, accomplishing the exact opposite of what they want.
Yet my biggest qualm with this report, though, is the implication that it is a bad thing that developers are trying to become better with new/more complex technology! It's in the interest of all IT departments to nurture growth of their workers. While the comparison isn't exact, it would be like a pro-sports team saying it's a bad thing their players are trying to become really good.
From a tin-foil hat perspective: this was funded by YC to create more hackers dissatisfied with their jobs and go form startups!!!