A few other things:

1. I should note that my position on Daisy has changed a bit since he was initially brought down, because pragmatically, what he did had bad results. But this is a topic for another day.

2. Didn't mean to go all Ned Beatty in Network on you. But as long as I have, I'll continue: a publically owned corporation is an entity that exists to make shareholders money. That's it. That's the one and only thing it is designed to do. It's not cynical to point out that any action a corporation makes is supposed to be governed by the bottom line, full stop. Individual executives (like, say, Steve Jobs) may make a decision to do something for personal reasons. But if the Board of Directors is doing what they're supposed to on behalf of the shareholders, and they don't think (as in Jobs case) that he is still going to make them more money than another executive, for whatever reason, then it's their job to get rid of him and replace him. Executive capture of the BoD is its own problem, obviously, but that's how it's supposed to work. There's a reason BoDs tend to not like giving executive positions to people who act for their own inscrutable reasons. Any thing they can do to make more money, within the bounds of the law, they're obligated to do. That's why companies have to have their hands legally tied in a lot of places.

3. Not for nothing, but you know what a great illustration of the ways that institutions swallow up the good (or bad) intentions and actions of individual actors to serve institutional needs? Paths of Glory. (And also The Wire.)