You take over a team or several teams that add up to a hundred or more people in total.
You probably don’t provide value and just added a layer of management and made vertical communication harder and more broken. You’re leeching off the company.
This brokenness is perceived as a leadership gap and more middle managers/VPs are brought in and the problem is exacerbated and the cycle continues.
Hopefully, someone who actually cares about the company they work for notices they have 40 VPs in an org of 500, or 4 layers of VPs and asks “wtf” and actually does something about it.
One of the VPs leaves, then ruins another company the same way.
Bottom line: VPs should be developed from within, or have such an obvious and clear role they are recruited for, and aren’t allowed to hire their friends or previous coworkers.
Often the target company is exuberant they got themselves a FAANG VP and bend over backwards to “let them work their magic”.
Destination company is usually totally unaware of the shitstorm they caused on their last ship, or don’t question why they were running a perpetually unprofitable business unit.
There are executive recruiting consultancies that very large firms use to vet potential executives. It’s more of an enhanced background check around lifestyle (liability) and professional claims.
At some point in your career in "upper management," the only qualification you need is a firm handshake and good "vibes."