[michaelfeathers]

I think it goes deeper.

When people become very skilled at programming they have the urge to scratch their own itch, either writing tools to solve software development problems or creating something with a technology that they want to use. They are uninterested in mundane, boring, vertical applications, but that's often where the money is.

The guy in the article did some development tools but some other things too. At the end of the day, imagining a market is no substitute for finding one.

[sohnakukkar]

Can you give examples of boring, mundane, vertical applications?

[bruce511]

Pretty much all business software. All the stuff you never see.

Think accounting, insurance, banking payroll, time keeping, invoicing, stock control production control, resource management, rostering, and so on.