I think it's caused by lack of knowledge, as you said, lack of managing capabilities, most of them doesn't know accounting, say reading a balance, cash flows, asn something worst, I've seen, that in retail where cash is abundant, some people do not understand that this money is not theirs, is borrowed money by the suppliers.
How the financials are performing. Usually small business owners lack either time or knowledge to monitor the overall business performance, meaning if the business is on red or black numbers. Day to day and lack of good financial foundations inhibit operators to check the facts over time.
1) There is a strong Cargo Cult ideation in our industry. Hence every startup is looking for a React developer who also have experience with Kafka and BigQuery.. and .. and... . And when the followed cults like Tesla, Netflix, .... began to layoff, guess what? our little cargo cult followers began to layoff, because that is the way to become the next Uber,Tesla,Netflix,whatever....
2) Lot of MBA C-Suite admins have arrived to our industry. And this is bad. We are not more an isolated island where code reigns, defines our position inside the hierarchy and so on. Now, politics, friends, nice looking people rule our dens. We are the operatives, the Storm Z cannon fodder. For every one of us, there are 300 waiting in line to "do the job".