"keep flogging the same shitty technology while bribing gub'mnt officials to ban new stuff" is not especially smart. no need for an advanced degree for that.
but boy howdy does it work, and make a lot of money.
> Because to be successful being greedy you have to be smart
There are plenty of people who are greedy and not smart. I'm not sure what basis this statement has. Plenty are greedy and not smart for their entire lives.
They are not smart. For many stupid would be an understatement.
The amount of stupid people who fail upwards is far larger than the few and far between who get there on merit.
My direct boss at the moment is one of the smartest people I've ever met. The people running the plant are some of the stupidest I've ever seen. Constant mistakes, short-sightedness, asking questions anyone who works at the plant should know in their first week, etc.
Best part is it's a relatively small city, so everyone knows everyone kinda. Our plant manager (top guy on site) was in a middle management role at his old plant (the worst in the city), where he was fired for incompetence. He wound up with us and within the year was the highest role.
We have lost countless years of experience due to people leaving over this guy and his cronies. He has no formal education, hasnt been in the plant life long enough to know anything, constantly makes idiotic decisions, etc.
These are the people who wont get out of the way of the people doing the actual work, and make their lives/work measurably worse due to their stupidity, greed, and incompetence.
A tale as old as time, yet for some reason we keep letting it happen.
> They are either greedy or stupid. You have to pick one.
Nah. Some people are definitely both, and it's the "stupid" bit that causes the "greed" thing to be applied blindly therefore achieving the opposite of what they wanted.
ie they make poor decisions and lose money instead
They're greedy, so they refuse a small pay bump to keep the current people happy.
Their bet is that they won't actually leave if they get rejected on the raise. This is where the stupidity comes in, they actually think people would be loyal and stay despite requesting a tiny raise.
What happens instead is that people are, obviously, annoyed and start looking elsewhere, where they'll get a much larger pay bump anyway. Now the idiots are forced to look for new people at much above what they could've paid to keep the old person, because no one is going to accept a new job below market rate.
Paying more for worse staff is stupid. In some cases the employee is good at their job but has languished for so long they’ve burnt too many bridges to be promoted. The only response for these people is work to retirement or job hop.
They are either greedy or stupid. You have to pick one.