Ludricrous estimates are usually a symptom of other organizational quirks.

I'd compare it to the military's $435 hammer [0], from the outside you'd think it makes no sense, but that's the logical end of a series of processes that all somehwat made sense on their own.

A common issue I've seen is devs having to put their head on the chopping block when making estimates. After the second or third time they get seriously punished for blowing pat deadlines, they'll happily go with around 10 times their own estimate. But there's so many other incentives where going with a "done in 2h" estimate is just a bad decision.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/the-penta...