What dumbbells are out here optimizing for that?
Suppose you're running a company, and you have two clients. One brings you $20,000 in profit a year, the other brings in $600,000 a year. Both of them have some sort of issue they need to resolve and report it to you at almost the exact same time. Let's say the smaller company reports it slightly earlier. But you only have enough manpower to solve the issues one at a time. Whose do you solve first?
The incredibly obvious answer to 99% of people is to solve it for the company that brings you 30 times more profit than the other. Any other answer is a sign of severe dysfunction and or insanity in the company.
But you don't just leave a big customer hanging for days or weeks, because they might get annoyed with you and go to $competitor which will seriously impact you. No serious business treats their big customers that, and it's a sign of dysfunction if they do.
I can't remember where I read about this -- DHH, maybe -- but it's also the difference between going for a sustainable business or venture capital. VCs don't care if most of their investments die horribly as long as a few make them rich. But the people who work for those businesses might care.
Sometimes it's better for your own mental health to avoid these "opportunities".
The end-game of capitalism is where companies start to recursively regulate their own markets. Perhaps government regulation wasn't so bad after all?