I wonder how much this is short-term investors being very dominant in the market, and executive compensation being tied to short-term performance, colliding?

If minimum holding times for a stock position were implemented (e.g. can't sell for 2 years), or if executives were compensated based on e.g. 10 year performance of the company, I feel like this cycle of acquisitions and layoffs and trend/hype-humping would die quickly.