Older people with extraordinary abilities have, in traditional bureaucratic companies, learned that bullshitting and playing politics is the easiest way to succeed. When they internalize this way of working, there is no going back; it makes them lazy and cynical.

Somehow, it requires a certain amount of naivety to _actually_ try to solve a hard problem instead of pretending to do something and then write a 100 page bullshit report (or mostly copy an old report) on it.