When you're +$400mil into venture capital raises 'the company' doing something like that can be an awful lot of time, effort and potentially political capital for a CEO to get through.

I'm astounded that so many supposed seasoned leaders were out there making crazy projections around maintaining covid levels of growth and I also don't think 'my bad' is enough in that context, but benefits above what's required are rarely handed over without someone committing to fighting for it.

I'd share your surprise; but, I sometimes question if they believed it themselves. I've spent the last 15 years in public companies and if there's one thing "The Street" demands, it's growth upon growth. The context of a pandemic being a once-in-a-lifetime event is meaningless. Your business experienced record growth and we expect you to continue that trajectory of increased growth no matter what--so get to investing for it!

Also, it might have been defensive. If competitors are burning money, you might feel like you need to keep up, even if it's not the ideal trajectory.

I tend to think that non-profit-maximizing actions of a company are almost entirely due to top-down leadership, so I would give him credit for those actions.