The engineers at TiVo seemed to be concerned with improving the backend of the technology (the things that users don't notice) instead of the many glaring defects. Instead of having an engineer check out one person's rather small issue (which would presumably take minimal time to correct), they lump it into a "to do" pile to be looked at with the next software update which generally takes several months to even start.
The upper-levels of TiVo have next to no communication among themselves or other departments. There was one instance where the advertising executive was going around college campuses in CA giving out free TiVos and the public relations executive had no idea it was going on. In fact, when they heard a report of it from a TiVo customer, they claimed it must be someone trolling the internet, a fake.
When the more senior executives start moving to other companies, that should be your indication that there are some critical issues with the company. At TiVo, they see that and instead of looking at it a saying "wait a minute...", they immediately deny the possibility of any issues (without any consideration) and come to the conclusion that that person had to leave for personal reasons. At the lower-levels of TiVo, when a supervisor would leave due to work conditions, their managers would go all-out determining what needed to be changed. I can't tell you how many times I saw immediate changes at the call-center when an issue was brought up that could be addressed without involving the corporate offices. If the corporate offices were involved or even caught wind of an issue at the call-center, all hope was lost.
