I've worked at a company where this philosophy was compounded on during the "down" days, where the company I was at was in a sharp decline. When the VPs and ex

I've worked at a company where this philosophy was compounded on during the "down" days, where the company I was at was in a sharp decline. When the VPs and execs panicked, they started at the hiring level... They made a plan to "stop hiring junior level" employees, and our team became full of Senior level people. Then they said we need more PhDs... because a PhD is prestigious and we need prestige. There was even a brief mandate to high an industry celebrity type, basically just for show. It all started with a "hiring by keyword" mentality and pretty much led to a massive decay of passion across the entire team.