I'm re-watching The Wire at the moment, which I'm enjoying greatly, and one of the best things about it is watching the lengths that the characters go to in ord

I'm re-watching The Wire at the moment, which I'm enjoying greatly, and one of the best things about it is watching the lengths that the characters go to in order to avoid being personally linked with criminal operations under their control. They benefit when the organization benefits, but aim to avoid the downsides when their staff's activities are exposed. As long as there are areas with very high reward (investment banking, drug dealing, human trafficking, startups), and enterprising individuals with the connections to organize them (either through experience and leadership progression, or by using opportunities to undermine former leaders / acquire resources), people will rise to these opportunities. Once an operation reaches a certain size however, many leaders become disconnected - intentionally or otherwise - from the day-to-day business of their organization. Given the typical attitudes on HN, I'd expect that most founders here would be genuinely mortified to find out if their software had caused real-life problems - most would take a lot of care to ensure good user experience and correct results; these make good business sense too. However I think many would eventually aim to become distanced from the business too - the dream of reliable passive income. Meanwhile, we imagine - and it's not hard to imagine - that many bank executives, criminal leaders, and others - actively enjoy their life in distance and immunity while feeling little remorse for the damage they do, and certainly not taking any intrinsic risk for it. We expect that the rule of law will deal with these problems when they occur - that's what optimistic films and positive fiction tell us - but the reality is that a good-enough combination of wealth, influence, leverage over others, and wits can let people stay at arms-length from (but in control of) nefarious affairs even if they are aware that they are causing harm. In some ways I think this expresses itself even in the trend for honest businesses to avoid liability where possible -- if we take liability for what we do, we also have to do the best we can and take genuine care of our customers. Somehow a fear of litigation, genuine exploitation of litigation (c.f. ambulance-chasers), and fear of decreased business efficiency have reached the level where companies do prefer to distance themselves. Often it is via lacklustre or even laughable attempts, such as using oft-ignored in-store signage, disclaimers, or automated customer interactions. Retreating from each other for fear of risk isn't healthy as a general trend, and neither is our inability to reach and re-integrate those who expressly intend to maintain their distance to avoid risk to themselves.