I think the bigger takeaway is that at a lot of big companies, the processes and management is horrible but it still makes a ton of money. These guys buy things that aren't optimized and squeeze all that money out. I think the most interesting thing would be to look back at one of these investments 5 or 10 years after they exit and watch the improvements slip away and the companies end up in trouble.
I think this is why people are dislike big government (me included, but necessary for some critical things) because there is no incentive to optimize. Quite actually, that is punished. Don't spend all your money one year and your budget gets slashed even though you may need that in a few years to upgrade equipment. The more layers of organization you add, the more managers you have who see their job as self-preservation. It looks like these guys run very very flat.
Well, less government leads to privatization of crucial infrastructure (airports, hospitals, banks, etc). Which still siphon government money, only now that money doesn't go to public good or government employees, but to private coffers, with no need to compete (regardless of "free market" hurr durr) since it's infrastructure and can not be allowed to fail.
That government can be inefficient is an efficiency problem.
That private actors basically "steal" taxpayer money is a lobby/regulatory problem.
Government does have some blame for the former, but you can't simultaneously regulate wall street (for example) and still blame the government for being in bed with them.
