I agree with most of this. However in my time I've never seen a company that was a., successful and b., prioritizing tech debt/upkeep at the same time. I presume AI will fix this however maybe not since it's so tempting to defer strategic decisions to it.

I have seen tech companies flourish which had tech, or tech-adjacent leadership. I've never seen a really good tech company that was lead by an MBA, a "vibe bro", or someone looking to get rich quick. It almost always comes from a genuine passion to solve problems in a certain domain.

One key point is also hires, hiring slowly and not keeping bad hires around. Bad hires really pull everyone down and it's really difficult to work around bad coworkers.

I personally actively filter out companies who don't use Slack. The way communication is done in a company reflects practically every company decision. (Conway's Law)