The principle of spreading the pain upwards extends to making ownership feel the pain of bad management. But that’s a slow mechanism, and in the case of public companies, shareholders are so thoroughly isolated and insulated that it hardly works at all.

It works in the evolutionary sense - the worst compianies just die.

Counterpoint: SAP remains a going concern.

SAP is really fascinating. On the one hand, it apparently works. On the other hand, it seems to feed on suffering.