Think of the kinds of people who vie for leadership roles at established companies like Sears was at the time. Those people aren't innovators and creators. They're management types, MBAs, bureaucrats.

And fair enough: When the ship is that big and there are that many people on board, you often don't want to "move fast and break things," because the downstream effects can be extreme. Now you've just broken a company that had been working for decades. You're incentivized to take small risks with high likelihoods of reward.

Of course, the problem is, at some point that becomes fatal. A balance can be struck, but it can be hard when the original driving force is long gone.