a lot. I do the integration for my employer. we saved a lot of manpower by automating tasks that used to be done by an employee.

this mid-size company already sold twice. I highly doubt these investment firms care about technical debt. they just want to pad up the company (cut costs) and make it look good so they can flip it.

we are not in IT

Why doesn't the original owner pad up the company (cut costs) and sell for more in the first place?

what makes you think they didn't?

They might have done some of that, but obviously the second owner founds some more opportunities. To reformulate my question: why didn't owner n anticipate all the padding that owner n+1 was about to do, and sell directly to owner n+2 at the higher price that owner n+1 got?

I came here to post exactly that. Knowing the cost is irrelevant if you don't know the benefits.

As long as the benefits are outweighing the costs, then everything is good. The net result of the technical debt is positive.

That's not to say that technical debt never gets out of hand, just like actual debt can. But it's a tool to produce greater value in total, when used right.

Yeah exactly right. If the growth > 0 you can continue borrowing and keep interest rates low.

Only if growth > “interest rate” - if productivity growth of tech plateaus or even slows then your ability to do anything in tech probably disappears.

This is the problem with pushing off all short term problems into the future indefinitely and ignoring them.