What they could have done is to try to reverse the hollowing out of their engineering divisions, and give them more agency and control in leadership. Finance types trying to min/max the P/E ratio is what got them where they are. Serious tech companies that do REAL engineering can’t really follow the norms that Wall Street loves these days and expect to remain technically cutting-edge.

Engineers are not really plug-and-play. Institutional expertise is a real and meaningful thing. They got here because their leadership has ignored those facts for at least a couple decades now.