What you're describing are perverse incentives. The incentive to take care of your family or yourself means that you build a career by short term value because that's what gets you promoted. Taking care of the customer or user first is generally a path to stagnation or getting fired in most companies. Directives come from the top, first things that get cut are training and travel, then customer impacting tools, then sales incentives, then the company downsizes and executives give themselves bonuses for "being decisive" to save the company, when all they've done is gut the company of any long term viability for short term stability.
