[astazangasta]

One of the most destructive aspects of the mythology of modern tech culture is this ridiculous worship of CEOs, as if they are supermen and the thousands of creative people who actually build the products we enjoy are just the gloves these heroes wear. Stop doing this. You're devaluing the worth of everyone here.

[nugget]

One manager's decision can make the work of hundreds of people worthless or even destructive. I've lived thru and seen it. Like it or not the shot callers at the top wield enormous influence and the ones who make consistently good decisions should be celebrated for that.

[jazzyk]

You are right - one bad decision can destroy a project/product.

But the opposite is not necessarily true. To ship insanely great things, you need a lot of factors to come together, not just one person's decision (although it helps).

Steve Jobs kept using ideas from the people who worked from him (presenting them later as his ideas). Yes, he had great intuition and good taste to choose the better ideas, but without the people who generated these ideas, he would have been yet another arrogant, loudmouth suit.

[brador]

It's his name on the door. The buck stops there.

(And he's driving the culture.)

[westernmostcoy]

The culture which may launch a lot in some parts, but does not uniformly ensure quality and is well documented as being difficult to work in.

Amazon is far too large to give Jeff credit for 100% of the output, despite his name being on the door or ultimate decision making authority belonging to him.