There are industries where that works. In business software, that's incredibly common, in part because people buy the same software every year, or on a subscription. So the company makes a half decent product, hires an insane amount of people to market it while firing the vast majority of the developers, sells a ton of subscriptions, then coasts for a decade or two. Any time a competitor starts forming, buy them, lay off the staff, and coast on that too.

It's the business model of the vast majority of business to business software/service products out there.