And if you make change to easy, you get weird Frankenstein technology stacks urdened with technical debt, so you need competent managers to hit a good middle g

And if you make change to easy, you get weird Frankenstein technology stacks urdened with technical debt, so you need competent managers to hit a good middle ground. And you need competent executives that can set good goals and provide enough resources to achieve them. Basically, you need competent people at every level. That said, since the competence of a level is directly controlled by the level above it, I guess it does just boil down to bad execs now or at some point in the past (or a good strategy not just working. The world isn't that deterministic).