I worked with Mudge (not super close, but enough to see how he worked across teams etc) and can certainly say this is not the case. At least when I saw him Mudge was excellent at the program leadership aspect of his role. At one point he ended up a DARPA PM. You can't go from L0pht to DARPA without getting really good at working with other people and leading projects.
While he was always a notable presence, he was also never prone to drama, and very good at having ego when it was important but never letting it get in the way.
Additionally all of the details sound like every KPI chasing consumer facing tech company I've ever worked with. I think we all know a few very competent people who have stood up to leadership at insane tech companies and ultimately gotten fired for it.
I worked with Mudge (not super close, but enough to see how he worked across teams etc) and can certainly say this is not the case. At least when I saw him Mudge was excellent at the program leadership aspect of his role. At one point he ended up a DARPA PM. You can't go from L0pht to DARPA without getting really good at working with other people and leading projects.
While he was always a notable presence, he was also never prone to drama, and very good at having ego when it was important but never letting it get in the way.
Additionally all of the details sound like every KPI chasing consumer facing tech company I've ever worked with. I think we all know a few very competent people who have stood up to leadership at insane tech companies and ultimately gotten fired for it.