Look at how much small teams accomplished in the 80s and 90s. I don’t mean rockstar teams where you know the names of some of the developers on them, today—normal-ass boring line of business stuff, applications that you maybe know but with no famous names attached, that kind of thing.
Consider how much more efficient we should be with allegedly-better processes and allegedly much better tools.
Look at some of those and estimate the team size and time to complete it now. Consider whether you could even deliver the same thing (say, native applications on two or three platforms) with double the team size and thrice the time, or whether you’d have to compromise and deliver something worse to make that happen.
There’s your answer.
[edit] though actually I think part of this is also because we’re on-average worse at managing companies overall, too.
Consider how much more efficient we should be with allegedly-better processes and allegedly much better tools.
Look at some of those and estimate the team size and time to complete it now. Consider whether you could even deliver the same thing (say, native applications on two or three platforms) with double the team size and thrice the time, or whether you’d have to compromise and deliver something worse to make that happen.
There’s your answer.
[edit] though actually I think part of this is also because we’re on-average worse at managing companies overall, too.