The gospel of burn and bail
Another exec crash-landed your org—here’s why nobody stopped them
Every few quarters, a familiar pattern plays out: a tech exec, polished and well-pedigreed, steps into a struggling org with the promise of transformation. A few all-hands meetings, a re-org or three, and a LinkedIn manifesto later, they're gone. Not out of the industry, mind you. Just promoted. Again. Somewhere new, with a bigger team, a bigger budget, and the same old bag of executive napalm.
These aren’t leaders. They’re Company Killers.
The cult of the itinerant destroyer
These folks don’t build. They detonate. They arrive with a slide deck, gut the product roadmap, obliterate institutional knowledge, and disappear before the QBR bloodbath. The wreckage? Someone else’s problem. The next role? Already lined up. The damage? Repackaged as "hard-won experience."
Let’s be very clear: these aren’t isolated misfires. This is a systemic pattern—an industrialized scam masquerading as leadership. The modern tech org doesn’t just enable these mercenaries; it deifies them. They are the Shiva of Silicon Valley: destroyers of teams, gods of churn.
Resume necromancy
Take a tour through any major tech ecosystem, and you’ll spot the signs: execs who spent 18 months at three different unicorns, each tenure ending just as the layoffs started. Their bullet points reek of euphemism: "navigated volatility," "spearheaded transformation," "right-sized operations."
Here’s what they won’t say:
They vaporized three product lines to chase a buzzy pivot.
They triggered attrition spikes so high HR had to suppress the data.
They pushed an org-wide rebrand that alienated every core customer.
But the narrative never changes: they "led with conviction." They "moved the needle." They "optimized for scale." And somehow, they keep getting hired.
The boardroom accomplices
You can’t talk about Company Killers without naming their enablers. Boards, VCs, and talent partners who confuse volatility with vision. Who value the performance of the pitch over the integrity of execution. These are the kingmakers of chaos—the ones who greenlight yet another hire based on logo lineage and LinkedIn clout, rather than asking, "What did this person actually leave behind?"
Nobody talks to the ICs who were laid off. Nobody audits the product graveyard. Nobody asks how many engineering leads resigned under that exec’s tenure. And why would they? It’s easier to rubber-stamp the cycle than admit you bet on a walking implosion.
Thought leadership, powered by amnesia
Company Killers don’t just fail upward. They brand it.
One week they’re nuking a devrel org; the next they’re keynoting a conference on "navigating uncertainty." Their Medium posts are full of wisdom-for-hire, all scrubbed of specifics. No mention of the SaaS platform they derailed, the data team they disbanded, or the engineering velocity they obliterated with three re-orgs in six months.
It’s a vibe economy, and these execs have mastered it. They don’t need results—just the right angle.
The human toll
Underneath the polished exec carousel lies a graveyard of careers. Burned-out PMs. Laid-off support staff. Engineering teams too demoralized to innovate. Cultures that once thrived now gutted, zombified, or outsourced.
Every time a Company Killer spins their failure into a speaking gig or another CxO role, they salt the earth behind them. And the industry just shrugs.
Stop feeding the destroyers
Enough. It's time to rupture the halo around these operators. Stop celebrating volatility. Start interrogating it. Stop mistaking disruption for vision. Start looking at who’s left standing after these execs "exit."
Ask the unsexy questions:
What did they actually ship?
What stayed broken under their watch?
Who’s willing to work with them again?
We don’t need more disruptors. We need custodians. Builders. People who take responsibility for their choices—and stay long enough to own the outcome.
Until then, the Company Killers will keep torching teams and falling upward. And your org might be next on the altar.
Got war stories or survivor tales? Hit reply. It’s time we started naming the patterns and holding the gods of destruction to account.