This is an astute observation. I have myself seen this at many employers now. It almost seems like execs and board members cannot think beyond the factory mind

This is an astute observation. I have myself seen this at many employers now. It almost seems like execs and board members cannot think beyond the factory mindset. And layers and layers of management have no desire or incentive to pushback. Leading to the best engineers getting tired of the grind. The either burnout, or withhold their best, or stop caring, or just do enough to keep the ship running - all of which "appears" as a drop in "velocity". This leads to PIPs and firings from clueless manager that is only looking at Jira points to inform themselves. At some point, the entire organization moves away from the engineering and people mindset to the KPI-factory mindset with poor decisions everywhere due to self-interest - leading the organization to become a worse form of IBM. It really is astonishing to me to see it play over and over. It is clear that the upper echelons of execs and board members and upper management don't care enough about the company to sustain a good culture.