People smoke from 15-20 years old but still don't die in their 30s. It doesn't mean it's not bad for your health. This is the same thing, it's bad for the health of the company. High dev turnover, poor working conditions, and productivity issues can all lead to a death from a thousand cuts, and even if the company doesn't actually go under, you can't say that a company didn't suffer because of it.
I'm going to be honest, this analogy is just not that good. You can draw some parallels to cancer and bad workplace culture, but it's a very skin-deep/awkward comparison in my opinion.
