"If the machine is designed to do X, it will struggle at Y no matter how clever the people." Not quite true as stated - unless this means that excellent people

"If the machine is designed to do X, it will struggle at Y no matter how clever the people." Not quite true as stated - unless this means that excellent people doing excellent work on unfavored Y are overwhelmingly likely to be transferred to a team working on X. Many successful pivots were possible because the team assigned to do Y were unexpected stars and before they could be shifted to more central work, it became clear they had created a different and more viable business than the machine they were supposed to be a minor part of.