i strongly suspect that nearly every time i've gone to the ceo with a clearly articulated case about how engineering is a mess and it needs radical rethought...

after assuring me how much they value my opinion, and apologizing for not having more time to go into it right now, they immediately contact the vpe or d-engineering and say..

cant you keep a muzzle on your people - i had to sit through 30 minutes of bitching about a bunch of stuff i really dont care about...and customer y is really getting pretty on edge about feature x .. just get me that damn thing