Institutional Delusion and Sunk Costs
When billions are invested in a technology, institutional logic inverts: evidence of failure becomes proof that more effort is needed, not that the approach is flawed. Companies will force adoption of demonstrably inferior tools rather than acknowledge the fundamental miscalculation, creating elaborate performance theatre where success is measured by usage metrics rather than outcomes. The financial commitment becomes so large that reality itself must be denied—leading to scenarios where senior engineers spend entire days arguing with systems that perform worse than interns, simply because admitting the technology doesn't work would invalidate the strategic vision that justified the investment.