Overoptimization, especially on a single or a few metrics, leads to fragility.

If they started teaching this to MBAs, the world would be a much better place.

Getting more money now rather than later allows you to reinvest it sooner, amplifying the compond interests of all your investments. It's about rate of return of investment.

The problem occurs when a business is successful because it moves slow, a critical aspect of modular products. Squeezing blood out of a modular product by manufacturing an inferior run may return investments faster, but it also kills the company.

In keeping with the wizard theme, it's definitely Moloch :)

"What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? Moloch!"

"Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!"

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/