I find the lack of automation of many business processes fascinating. Many of my friends are paid a fortune to carry out mundane data processing tasks and confidently reach analytical conclusions that do not seem really robust.

I dunno how much of this is:

phycological - people have an optimism about the usefulness and difficulty of their work and deference to abide with convensions.

Stratigic - people somehow lose power and influence if their domain is standardised/automated or they admit high levels of uncertainty.

Lost in translation - You said that many people don't think like programmers in addressing problems, but I also often feel grated when businessy topics come up on HN and clever programmers appear to slightly butcher simple microeconomics. I probably do the same when discussing solutions to theoretical algorithm questions.

There's a value in establishing a common terminology and philosophy within a field because of increased communicational efficiency and agreement. This comes at the costs of alienating the less experienced and creating a clash on domain interfaces. Maybe if programmers and business execs knew more about each other's cultures then more useful tools could be made.