"Seems like", sure. But a lot of thing "seem" this or that until you actually look at the details and context. Without that, it's essentially meaningless information.

Sure. How many businesses have more employees than "customers"? It's not a perfect analog but it's not unreasonable to ask "what are we really doing here?" either.

How many of those have customers who generate less than the average employee's salary in revenues?

Other than some niche tiny firms catering to the stupidly wealthy (the 0.1% and above) like a dynastic family investment fund, I can’t think of any. Can you elaborate on some examples?

> Other than some niche tiny firms catering to the stupidly wealthy (the 0.1% and above) like a dynastic family investment fund, I can’t think of any.

Very much not niche, not tiny firms catering to the even more stupidly wealthy than any individual human: customers aren’t always natural persons.

The reason it makes sense is the common view of “administrators are useless” is backwards.

It’s the faculty that are replaceable. Students go to a university because they like the administration. It’s like a resort.

(The faculty may be adding value by being in academia at all, but it doesn’t matter for students which particular ones you meet. It could if you wanted to enter academia yourself, but you definitely don’t want to do that.)