> You probably won’t get to choose what to work on, and you may not agree with all the decisions of the powers that be. In fact, it’s practically certain you won’t. After all, you know more about the subject matter than they do.

Wait a minute if the people most suited to make a decision are overridden by people less competent than them (they have to be most of the time, given the different focus of their career), that's kind of a problem, isn't it? Is there any way to avoid such structural failures?

Less competent in what? The people with decision-making power are supposed to be good at some combination of product innovation, product management, sales, marketing and accounting. ICs are only suited to making some decisions in the first two, and have next to zero expertise in the others.