This makes more sense when you remember that being "concerned with reality" for a salesperson mostly means "Getting the commission paid and moving to a different role before everything blows up too badly", rather than "delivering software that meets the sales deal's contractual requirements".

Salespeople are too rarely judged/punished for the disastrus messes they leave behind, and all too quickly judged/rewarded for being able to convince a customer to sign off on a big number without any care for long term implications of that deal...

Him selling you that as an original was an instance of that itself as it's a Mark Twain quote. Funny how that works.

I don’t have the number but the percentage of success that “best salesperson” is small.

Most of the time, the development will be discontinued, or change the direction.