"The management textbooks [at my business school] used to tell you that steady profits were the most important thing."

That's stark raving mad. It is for example one of the clearest signs someone is running a Ponzi scheme. Which would seem to transfer over to this not quite as dishonest domain.

Reverence for GE, a company doing technical things that started stack ranking and firing their employees.... Plus eventually got first their fingers and then last time I checked their whole body burned by going into financial businesses, very much not a core competence.