Actually, you've reinforced my point. Those examples are, as you said, high-level executives, not software engineers. While office politics has always existed,

Actually, you've reinforced my point. Those examples are, as you said, high-level executives, not software engineers. While office politics has always existed, it used to remain within the context of engineering. You mention Apple, Steve Jobs was the business person/visionary. But Steve Wozniak, the engineer behind Apple, actually made it very clear he doesn't like nor want to participate in politics or business tricks.