Comment by skippyboxedhero

The incentive for CEOs is announcing the plan to do something, they have no idea if they will actually be able to do it, and it probably won't matter.

This happened in the dotcom too btw. Companies built out fibre networks, it wasn't possible to actually build all the physical infra that companies wanted to build so many announced plans that never happened and then, towards the end, companies began aggressively acquiring stakes in companies who were building stuff to get financial exposure (an example was BT, which turned itself briefly into a hedge fund with a telephone network attached...before it imploded).

CEOs do not operate on the timescale of waiting and building. Their timescale is this year's bonus/share options package. Nothing else matters: announce plans to do X or Y, doesn't matter, they know they will be gone long before it happens.