They're annoying companies to work at, yes. They're also highly profitable, so it's difficult to make the case that they're poorly run.

A highly profitable company can be poorly run and still survive exactly because there is so much more margin for error than for a company which is barely profitable (or worse).

Granted, that kind of situation is unlikely to continue indefinitely, but it certainly can happen.

Profitable companies are often very, very poorly run. The best run companies, in an absolute sense, are ones that are extremely close to breakeven on margin and thus have to shave every penny - my prototype for this would be Costco, for example.

Companies in industries where you can print money (for a while...) usually haven't actually been put under any duress, so any fool can manage them and look like a genius. It's in hard times that you discover whether you're a good manager or not, when the decisions made in good times come home to roost.

If you reduce a companies purpose to solely being "making money" then by that definition sure.

But in my opinion the worship of money and reduction of everything to being solely a dollar maximizer is one of the biggest problems that humanity has at the moment - it is a reduction in purpose by the blind and greedy.

My definition of a well run company is one that is still profitable, but has happy employees who are maximizing their potential and growth. Who is a good tax paying entity so that it contributes back to the society that is supporting it. Is making a healthy return for its shareholders despite all of this, and is not doing anything evil like producing toxic chemicals, harming vulnerable people or polluting the environment.

Is it idealistic? Yes of course it is. Our collective description of greatness should be to aim at perfection so that even falling short of it is still excellent.

Saying it must be well run because its profitable makes me sick, because that line of thinking feeds unrestrained greed, and is exactly the reason our state of capitalism is so unbalanced and full of greed right now.