It helps if you've read the rest of his series on his history in technology and at Apple, where he adds more context. But it also helps if you have management/p

It helps if you've read the rest of his series on his history in technology and at Apple, where he adds more context. But it also helps if you have management/political experience. Essentially, he was being "promoted" from the top of the engineering organization to the bottom of the CEO's political organization. This meant that in practice he had much less control over his own future and was now mostly accountable for his perception amongst his fellow political peers, who (as other people have already discussed here) were already "Yes Men" for the CEO and not interested or even able to consider contrary positions.