I think this might matter a little less than it seems.
Gold is pretty useless at most things apart from remaining itself, which is why it's useful as a means of payment. A substance that has wide use in some productive process would not be suitable.
For example, if used as money, Oakwood, or mackerel (salted, to avoid rotting) or titanium would run into a problem, because they can be used to make stuff. Hence, if titanium was money, and you needed for example to pay for a batch of titanium to forge a high-end motorcycle spring, you would find yourself in the paradoxical situation of needing titanium to acquire titanium.
You would need barter to get what you need, but that's by definition a non-monetary exchange.
All imho, of course.
IPB
In some systemically important sectors this is not just pervasive, but encouraged behaviour.
For example, traders working in investment banks are rewarded by the amount of money they make, with (almost) no consideration for the risk they take in. Making a lot of money for nine years in a row, and blowing up the whole company on the tenth is way more profitable (for a trader) than making steady, secure profits for ten years in a row (actually, you will be fired after three, for not making enough money).
I think this could be extended pretty well to all places where the people running the business are not the owners; this means that they are exposed to the upside (share of profits) but shielded from the downside (cleaning up the mess when the whole enterprise goes tits up). In this situation, it's not surprising many of them don't care about the long term.
IPB