It gave CEOs and excuse to do layoffs even though they knew it would hurt their human capital long term, and that they would probably have to hire back a lot of those positions long term at higher wages. In the short terms it gave them a few quarters of increased profits.It also let them push out blatantly unfinished products on the promise of future improbable improvements. This will hurt companies reputations long term, but in the short term is let them juice the stock price.

They needed the increased profit and the pie in the sky growth promises to game the stock market, say all the right buzz words and show an improving price to earnings.

Sure they made the companies worse and less sustainable long term, but, they got huge compensation packages right now thanks to the markets, and they probably won’t be running these companies long enough to see the true fallout.