Holding out two weeks for a better house price is worth a fortune to you and pocket change to your agent. No dishonesty required — just a small gap between what you want and what they're paid for.
Colonial Hanoi paid a bounty per rat tail and got a rat-farming industry. The failure needs no dishonesty — only a proxy, a consequence, and someone rational enough to notice the shortcut.
Incumbents rarely lose because they were careless. They lose because listening to their best customers, protecting margins, and ceding the unprofitable low end are each individually correct — and collectively fatal.
Persistence and bold bets describe the founders who succeeded — and just as many who didn't, and aren't being interviewed. A structural view of these companies is more useful than the folklore.
Most investments return little; one or two return the entire fund. Every practice in the industry that looks strange from outside is a rational response to that distribution.
A rule needs a harm that is noticed, documented, understood, and politically salient. All four take years, while products change in months — and that gap explains most of the field.