> developer tool documentation

i dont think thats what is being talked about here. Why would they write shitty tool documentation if practically their product.

OP is talking about this

> never once did I see code documentation work out well.

They are not synonymous.

My company's external api has amazing documentation but we have shitty internal code documentation.

My post wasn't concerned with internal code documentation. Seems like we're having parallel conversations.

gotcha.

> There are also cases where documentation led companies to growth—one example is Stripe.

when you said 'there are also' i thought you were talking about the same thing as the comment you were responding to. Not sure how existence of something totally unrelated to original comment is relevant.

I wasn't talking about external api's or libraries, I actually mentioned that

>> With the exception of external libraries or API's, ..

Those I agree are different, the documentation is part of the product that you offer or sell to external customers.