Wh..why did you even stay long enough for this to have happened more than once?
What I mean by that, was I was REALLY invested in the project: not the business case, or the brand or anything else about the company, and particularly not the CEO. I REALLY wanted to complete the project as a badge of honour for myself.
I’d built 4 x tech teams of a total of 25 senior devs up from nothing, entirely re-wrote the broken legacy backend systems and switched over flawlessly, under-budget and on-time, as well as gave the other teams I managed the autonomy and trust to rebuild front-end and mobile systems using best practices. We had a great engineering culture that I was proud of.
I had known from the very beginning that the CEO was a loose cannon, but I stupidly thought I had the experience and willpower to keep them under control and largely out of the way of the tech team. I was so horribly wrong.
When the above rebuild of the backend was finished they placed an incompetent buffoon in charge over me, threw out the roadmap I’d created and started micro-managing the senior devs. When he was shouting at one of the senior devs for daring to be 5 minutes late to work, I took him aside and said “you just can’t do that, these people are hard to come by” he fired me on the spot.
So, yeah, hubris.
Australia had laws like this in the past (thanks Liberal Party, you pricks), but they were being seriously abused and eventually rolled back. Abuse still happens though, just less of it.
When I was young I detailed cars for a small dealership with 3 owners. It was a hot summer day, no AC in the shop, boss wanted me to get a car detailed in 2 hours. Kept asking if it is ready, and at some point he started screaming at me.
I literally said, "Fuck off man, I'm done, you can do this shit yourself". It was the most liberating moment in my life. Other owners called me and asked if I would come back, that the other guy was sorry. I didn't.
Today my emergency fund will cover 2 years of living expenses, because I never want to be stuck working in a crappy environment.
Of course, and of course. But (I presume) the OP works in the same industry most of us do, and that getting another job has been incredibly easy for more than a decade.
No regrets.