it's not a race to the bottom, it's a zero sum game. someone is gonna lose money but everyone who currently has a stake thinks they can bail out before the crash (or if the people in charge try to abort the game and initiate a more sustainable but less immediately profitable model). Stockholders essentially hold a company hostage like that: maximize short term growth of my asset value right now or I tank the entire org, then when the bad decisions you made today come back to haunt you I dump stock, pull up stakes and haul ass right before the whole thing explodes. These people kill sheep for wool.