I'll pick small company, thank you.

This is great. I'd begun to conclude the pendulum swung too far towards "moneyball" and both approaches have trade-offs, but this is perfectly succinct

Yeah... there are no systems that are not political. Even if you agree objectivity is a thing, someone has to persuade others to buy into whatever that objectivity is, and that's still politics, and not cynical at all.

Why not both?