At the risk of sounding cynical, there are also companies out there that want to _appear_ to be interested in all the things you just mentioned, so they'll hire a few people to do their [wave hands] data science, machine learning "thing" and those few people then go down the rabbit hole, untethered from reality. The C-suite people will then have their message they can deliver externally—and internally—about their commitment to [wave hands again] all that stuff. The tragedy when this happens is that sometimes that small team of people is not aware what their function at the company is—being the human props for the sales and marketing teams. The alternative, I suppose, is far more depressing—that the "data scientists" are fully aware of their role in the grand scheme of things.