Of course, Facebook themselves acknowledge that 10% of their revenue is literal scams. Like, people pay them to forward their scams to the targets of said scams. They know this is happening.
Obviously criminality pays. I wouldn’t hold up a drug dealer’s returns as evidence of good leadership
Some people in tech want companies to innovate and take risks by spending on R&D instead of just funneling it back to investors or safer existing markets, others will complain that they took those risks and failed despite still running profitable businesses.
I'm in the former group where I personally support Meta taking risks on big ideas while still being profitable. Just like SpaceX and others. I don't blame Mark for getting excited about AR which is very likely a big market in the future, the gamble on the tech being affordable enough was just far too early for the scale of investment. Their investments there might still pay off as it gets cheaper.
I hate the guy personally, but still understand that at that scale, if the leader is so conservative that s/he never risks losing, they are already losing. Like airline manufacturers never investing in jets because early ones weren't safe.
MSFT's bumbling idiot Ballmer Threw away at least a billion on one of the failed early versions of the Surface, but it went on to be profitable (or at least successful with customers) later. They also burned billion(s) acquiring skype, only to switch to Teams. Say what you want about their terrible products, but somehow they are still successful businesses.