This developing lack of morality was exactly why I backed off from management. I was seven years in had a chance at a promotion to director, looked at where I was headed ethically and morally, where my stress level was headed and dropped back to being a software engineer — best decision I ever made. I don’t know what the answer is to the corruption in modern corporate culture, but it is insidious and nearly unavoidable. I have known a grand total of one manager who fought it in my career, and he never advanced past the lowest level of management.

The core problem seems to be that both public and private companies reward short term plans. Solve the problem in front of us in the next week, or maximize the next quarter’s profits. These things lend themselves to hacky cheating solutions, which leads to a feedback loop. When the lousy solution from last quarter shows up as a drop next quarter, well do it all again but bigger, faster, louder, and everything will be okay. Right?