> Some companies will pay a bigger price than others.

The problem is that typically a large company has one or a few golden geese. They can milk it for a long time because of an existing moat. The moat keeps shrinking, but it can sometimes take a decade or two for others to catch up.[1] That's plenty of time for such folks to make a career of playing politics well without contributing much.

Lots of people at that company left before things went bad and are poisoning other companies.

[1] Just look at Google and search. Or Microsoft and Windows. Or even Microsoft and Internet Explorer.