[cco]

I'm shocked that some middle manager with half a technical head on their shoulders didn't use this as a VP play before this; surely, "I saved the company 120m a year with no downstream consequences to yada yada" would have been worth it for someone somewhere to climb the ladder.

[markvdb]

Why would you, if in good times you can enlarge your own budget/headcount/importance/... just by increasing budget no questions asked, that's a safer way ahead. You risk devaluing your own position in the company for an uncertain gain...

[markvdb]

I was obviously being slightly sarcastic. I wouldn't want to personally work that way. I do believe that might be quite an effective strategy if one's goal were climbint the corporate ladder.