In the latter years of the 1980s Bill Gates saw IBM as his archenemy. He planned his assault on that company brilliantly. He partnered with them to develop mission critical software: their soon-to-be flagship operating system: OS|2.
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He disdained IBM and the way they designed and built their software. He thought they were slow and conventional. He bided his time.
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Finally, he severed his relationship, largely by outright giving OS|2 to IBM. The investment community was aghast! They saw Microsoft as a small, leaky boat tied up to the massive IBM pier. But when Gates severed the ropes, the pier sank instead.
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So now, 30 years later, Microsoft *IS* IBM. The company behaves exactly the same way IBM did back in the 20th Century. They have become their enemy.
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Now, when Microsoft sank IBM, the former industry leader didn’t shut down or anything like that. In fact, IBM made buttloads of money in the next 20 years. But they did it by dropping out of the computer business and becoming a consulting company.
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IBM raked in the cash but entirely abdicated their industry leadership. They became irrelevant.

Do you see where I’m going with this?
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Then Gates stepped down and handed the reins of Microsoft to Steve Ballmer. Ballmer was a salesman. A loud, aggressive, in-your-face salesman. In his decade-long tenure, MSFT increased their revenue and profit by an order of magnitude. But they utterly lost their way in tech. 7

Could it be that “success in business,” as it is currently defined, is somehow in opposition to our stated noble ideals? Could it be that maximizing shareholder value can only be accomplished by squashing people and abandoning creativity and innovation?

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Today, IBM makes 75 billion dollars a year and employs 350,000 people. MSFT, with fewer than half that many employees, makes 125 billion a year. If you want a good, steady office job, either one is fine.
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But the myth is bigger than the billions. The fantasy of innovation is stronger than the real-world quotidian facts. Intelligent, ambitious, fresh-faced youngsters with the ink still damp on their graduate degrees clamor to get one of those good, steady office jobs.
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Pleasing your boss is always way easier than pleasing the universe.

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As @flowchainsensei points out, when I said “good, steady job” I was being facetious. I recommend you to @davidgraeber for clarification.
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