Having spent some years as an employee of several consulting firms (with an IT focus, not management/McKinsey style), I can comfortably say that a primary goal

Having spent some years as an employee of several consulting firms (with an IT focus, not management/McKinsey style), I can comfortably say that a primary goal of a professional services organization is to maximize realization[0] and profitability. When the goal of an organization is maximization of revenue/profit to the exclusion of all else, it's not unusual to see laxity in ethical standards. The mechanism for doing so is to provide quality[1] service and leave the customer satisfied. The article makes it clear that the Sackler family felt this was true for the services provided by McKinsey. You'll note that those are similar metrics that are associated with sex workers. The primary difference between consultants and prostitutes is that being the former is usually (but not always) less degrading. None of the above should be all that surprising to anyone. The question then becomes: "What, if anything, should we do about it?" I posit that we should make the costs of ethical lapses higher than the potential profit of same. We certainly don't have that now. Perhaps we should work to change that? [0] https://www.hainesandlagerquist.com/understanding-utilization-realization-profitability-professional-services-firm/ https://www.hainesandlagerquist.com/understanding-utilizatio... [1] 'Quality' in this context is generally defined as "achieving whatever result the client desires."