> Some high-up executive says "We have to be in X market by Y date!" Everyone kills themselves to make the date. At the end, the product owner has to tell Executive that it looks like we won't make the date, no matter what we do. Executive says, "Oh, don't worry about it then, we just won't be first to market."

I'm not sure how many execs would be totally chill with not being first to market if they could have been, but I have seen "Oh, that's actually okay, we been saying March knowing it'd really be September. So you have more time, but it really has to be September"

And then the exec pats themselves on the back for their smart planning, while the engineers regret all the corners that they wouldn't have cut if they'd known they had more time.