This hypothesis is testable in the market, and there are any number of investors—including private equity firms and activist investors—on the lookout for feathered-nest C-suites and other misaligned executive incentives.

There was a great little aside a couple months ago on the Odd Lots podcast[1] about investors forcing a radical change in oil company executive incentive compensation that had been draining shareholder value for decades.

[1] https://overcast.fm/+5AWMJLBNw