I was in college and it seemed that the first IPOD was overpriced and just a "cool" thing to buy. There were other MP3 players that were cheaper coming on the market. But I quickly realized the risk is too high if AAPL continues to be popular even if their hardware is overpriced.
Thanks for being honest, far too many people cannot admit they are wrong and double down and call Tesla a fraud only making them look worse in the future. I've certainly been wrong about companies before. I shorted AAPL for a week in 2002.
It is one thing to bring in some more workers to help you with research you don't have the ability to do. It is another thing to pay someone to make a report backing up a decision you have already made. It is another thing to pay someone to make a decision that you don't want to make, so they can take the blame. The first example is not why management consulting gets a bad name.
In other words your clients have incompetent executives and instead of suggesting those people be replaced you do their work for them since they are the ones paying your fees.
The book Sapiens has a similar message. The children of farmers who move to textile manufacturing were worse off than their parents in the 1800s. But the great great grandchildren of those people have material wealth greater than upperclass people in the 1800s when comparing clothes, entertainment, transportation, health care. And none of them would prefer to live as an 1800s farmer today.
Just lean into that. Start automating peoples jobs or making their jobs irrelevant. The management will take note of the concerns of the others and put you in your own group. Now that you have established that you are 5x more productive than the other employees while only making 20% more, management will not care if you slack off and only work 5 hours a week.
Taleb talks about this in Anti-fragile. Rock Stars can wear whatever they want and it doesn't hurt them in their career. In contrast a lawyer or accountant could seriously hurt their career showing up to work with an unusual outfit on.
In the Software world you can have it both ways. Showing up in sweatpants and a vulgar t-shirt may cause people to think you are so good that you don't have to care. But also to think that you will never be in management