Also traditional companies don’t typically have knowledge based employees. There’s a limit to what high expertise can bring. This is what has led to management as the promotion track.

That is true, but you can become an expert in multiple things. For example you become an expert brick layer and then you become an expert plumber, and so on. Or in a knowledge based company, you become an expert payroll accountant, then an expert tax accountant, then an expert revenue accountant, etc.

Management is also a skill. And it’s arguable a more useful skill since it’s more transferable than a narrow focus. At very high levels you have a lot of responsibility figuring out where your company is headed.

So people value knowing where to go more than being able to get there? Is this the gist of it? If so, why? I don’t understand why one is more important than the other. You can have the best plan on the planet, but if you don’t have the people to get you there quickly, safely, and in top shape, that plan is just that, a plan.