I always thought the housing bubble burst started in 2008 would wipe out the companies that had bad reputation. However, what I saw was that many good companies were gone but bad ones still remain. I was very puzzled by this phenomenon, but now I understand why.

There was a millwork shop I used to work with, its owner was extremely artistic and skilled, but the reality is that the creative and artistic people usually are not very business savvy, their artist mindset just can’t compete with their competitors who are more business oriented but less creative or skilled. So, the skilled and creative craftsmen are all out of business but the un-skilled, non-creative businessmen with inferior craftsmanship and quality of work all survived. This kind of Darwinism doesn’t seem justified.