It’s about momentum. Once you lose it the wheels come off. And at first that’s shipping product, but later on it’s adding new features to the minefield you’ve laid. Until you start clearing the mines your velocity continues to drop.
I've been doing this for decades, it's never a problem. Either velocity tanks in which case there's a short period where company invests into improving it, or people leave.
But I'm curious about how one prevents this dysfunctional culture.
At a big company “you” don’t lose anything. You only lose if you’re a fool trying to fix dysfunctional culture when you’re not even close to C level.
Little guy can't do it, and neither can speeches from the bosses.
It’s just really hard to overstate how much damage a bunch of crappy code can have. Even with the best of intentions. I must say I strongly disagree that this is “never a problem”.