If you can't admit the problem. Can't stare it down. Can't comprehend it. Then I don't know how you can ever solve it. I try to avoid these places, not easy though.
When he helped set the tone for the Zen architecture he took AMDs existing people, set them on a more aggressive path and one of the cardinal tenants was you could not cheat on the interfaces. This is one of the nuggets you can pull from his interviews.
It's possible. It happens. And the end results can be industry changing.