The abilities that produce evolutionary advantages can be systematically impaired after repeated competitions with highly hereditarian transmission of the winners' abilities. Economically relevant abilities may therefore not emerge after multiple competitions. Instead, ability may gradually deteriorate over time (i.e., converge to complete ineptitude) or change with no ultimate direction. This evolutionary antithesis is counterintuitive, but holds under general premises of core models of repeated competitions.

Employee burnout has long plagued firms and salespeople are particularly susceptible. The prevalence of burnout indicates that work-related effort is not only costly in the present but has carryover effects into the future. The single-period principal-agent model commonly used to study sales force compensation design cannot fully account for this, as it effectively treats periods as independent.