Its disingenuous to claim that these engineers werent delivering business value. James Gosling worked on Java at Sun and Sun failed, would you say that Gosling isnt a good engineer ?

Engineering can only work in the bounds of the problems set to it. If the leadership doesnt want to diversify streams , get into delivery for example there is nothing engineering can do there. In the end you need both good business acumen to succeed and engineering is just a multiplier and facilitator there.