I once worked for a small consultancy which did business by fishing for contracts, then doing the absolute to-the-letter minimum to fulfill them, irrespective of damage to the customer’s business or the company reputation. We would deliver working software that was absolutely awful to actually use for anything.

Often, clients would literally tell us to f*ck off when they realized we would not do anything that wasn’t in the contract verbatim, no matter how trivial.

To me, it was insanity. I would have preferred actually solving customer issues in a partnership fashion, and day-to-day work was nightmarish due to the constant conflict of values. Raising an issue about this got me branded a complainer.

The company slowly gathered enough references to attract some bigger clients (realistically: via backroom deals and kickbacks) and was eventually acquired, and some time later the executives were politely told to pack their things and get out.

They got what they wanted: a hefty paycheck and a load of shares from the acquiring company. The entire company was an acquisition scam from the get-go.