I'll give an counter-example. A local company here in Vancouver, Canada that services real-estate market. Not a very big one, but probably not a start-up either. Basically an office suite for a real-estate agents with the hook-up into MLS. Excellent management, astounding sales, absolutely and utterly fucked up development. I know several people who worked for them in different capacities, and all of them were basically ashamed of the quality of the product, but always said the goal was to produce something that sales could sell.

So, yeah, there was a founder who can get the shit done. But he didn't see quality product development as a priority :)