Profitable companies are often very, very poorly run. The best run companies, in an absolute sense, are ones that are extremely close to breakeven on margin and thus have to shave every penny - my prototype for this would be Costco, for example.

Companies in industries where you can print money (for a while...) usually haven't actually been put under any duress, so any fool can manage them and look like a genius. It's in hard times that you discover whether you're a good manager or not, when the decisions made in good times come home to roost.