> the CTO at the second had been convinced of my idea and gave me the authority to pull who I needed to get it done.

But that mean those people have the power, not you. Without that formal power structure you wouldn't do so much work trying to convince these people, the formal power structure forces everyone to try to manipulate and work with it, even you.

So it makes it so much easier to do anything if you are that high up person, imagine that was you, now instead of having to convince these people to do it now you just do it.

Power structures exist in any group of size. Companies can choose how formal to make them, but they can’t avoid them.

Imagine instead of having to convince the Director, VP, or CTO to support your good idea, that instead you had to convince 100 out of 700 people to support it, while at the same time, those 100 people are hearing good-sounding ideas from 99 people who aren’t you.

I’d way rather work in the former than the latter.