Furthermore, there are many layers between them and where much of the wrongdoing took place, so they may or may not have had any involvement in the "villainy".

Furthermore, there are many layers between them and where much of the wrongdoing took place, so they may or may not have had any involvement in the "villainy". Perverse unintentional incentives at one more places in the stack are more than sufficient to create the appearance of villainy without any intentional malice. Hanlon's Razor is far more common than people want to admit. In this story, doctors are looking for easy solutions they can prescribe in 5-15 minute appointments so they can see as many patients in a day. Management is looking to increase sales. Account managers are trying to get doctor's to prescribe. The only "villainy" at the board/shareholder level could be as simple as tasking management with finding other legitimate well meaning use cases for opioids. That incentive alone is enough to create pressure all the way down the stack and when people in the stack are presented with the challenge of meeting goals, all of them in concert making small compromises within their role are enough to produce the illusion of villainy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor