> growth at all and any cost This is 100% the root cause. Without exponential growth targets, almost all the ills mentioned wouldn't have been required. And

> growth at all and any cost This is 100% the root cause. Without exponential growth targets, almost all the ills mentioned wouldn't have been required. And specifically, without exponential growth targets for companies with market cap already above $1T. I'm convinced we'd be living in a better world if MAMAA would have said "Okay, our core business is mature. We're going to run it as a cash printing machine but with lower growth. If you want growth, here are companies we're spinning off." Unfortunately, the reality of the software dev and infrastructure economies probably requires halo behemoths. For the former, so they can be compensated in equity, and the latter, because there's only enough demand for a few at minimal-cost-per-unit scale.