> the more successful the company is, the more prone it is to flights of executive whimsy

Apple's Liquid Glass comes to mind.

The design exec responsible suddenly left Apple for Meta, a company rather less esteemed for design, and Apple still hasn't acknowledged this failure or backtracked.

Admit wrong, from Apple? Was there acknowledgement of say butterfly keyboards? Seems on brand to quietly walk back an unpopular decision.

Apple has strategically retreated a few times but it always puts on a show of doing it in a “forward” direction. Look for much of the annoyances of Liquid Glass to quietly be lost.

partial backtrack in some ways.