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Technical debt actually isn't a great metaphor. It breaks down too quickly, as in this case. You don't have to "repay" technical debt. It's not really debt.

A company only needs to build something that works. If it works in spite of violating elementary design precepts, shoddy components, bugs, and necessary evil, then it still works. The only thing that matters is the result. Investing resources into optimizing it so that it works better than necessary is merely an option, whereas getting it to work wasn't.

The iron triangle includes cost and schedule in addition to performance. If it would take more money or time than you have to make it perform better, then it just won't, because you don't have that much money or time. A product that frightens the maintainers, but keeps the lights on, is a good result.

Of course, you might optimize yourself into a local maximum if you're weak on strategy. That's why nearly every organization in the world has some kind of separation between "officer/executive" and "enlisted/staff" in the hierarchy. Someone needs to balance the triangle and someone needs to write code and there isn't enough time for the same person to do both.