The dichotomy of hard versus valuable and an interest in the business side of things

From I, Cringely, NerdTV, Max Levchin makes a nice observation about engineers when asked about the need to understand the business side of things:

".... I think there's a huge benefit to knowing what it is you're working for. And there's definitely - one of the typical pitfalls in the world of engineering - and I don't mean to slight my fellow engineers, but - is this dichotomy of hard versus valuable. And lots of engineers mistake hard for valuable."

There is no point spending hours figuring out a hard problem if no one cares about the solution, valuable problems are ones that are tied to markets so a bit of business Savvy is important!