Fair enough, that kind of thing is toxic and I don't get involved with those kind of places. Personally I moved back from Lead Architect/CTO roles to being a c

Fair enough, that kind of thing is toxic and I don't get involved with those kind of places. Personally I moved back from Lead Architect/CTO roles to being a consultant mainly doing IC work where I deliver the entirety of a system myself. In other words I do deliver the goods technically, and happen to prefer that to working politically. So it would seem my observation/perspective is coming from a different perspective than you were thinking of!