Here's the thing about a company that just fired its CTO and didn't line up nobody to take the seat. Ain't nobody in that boardroom saying it out loud, but what they just did is tell every business unit in the building it's open season. And people don't wait around to be told twice when there's power sitting on the table unattended.
First thing goes is the process. Won't be loud about it neither — nobody's gonna stand up and say "let's stop vetting our technology properly." What happens is smaller. A review gets skipped 'cause there's no one senior enough left to insist on it. Then another. Six months on, don't nobody remember there used to be a process at all, just some folks vaguely recall filling out a form once.
Then the business units start making technology decisions same way a man starts driving a truck he's never driven before — confident right up until the ditch. They ain't wrong to want progress. They're just the wrong people making the call, and everybody in the room knows it, and everybody in the room decides that's a tomorrow problem.
Costs go up. Nobody owns admitting that, 'cause the money's coming out of two pockets now instead of one, and when it's two pockets, it's nobody's fault special. That's not an accident. That's what happens when accountability gets split — same as blame does. Everybody's a little bit responsible, which means don't nobody's really responsible at all.
Give it a year, they bring somebody in from outside to fix it. Stranger walks in, looks around, tells 'em exactly what they already knew walking in the door — you people tore down the fence and now the cattle's in the road. Only difference is they're paying consultant rates to hear it said back to 'em slow.
And the folks who used to complain about the old CTO? They're the ones left standing in a hallway with a job title that don't mean nothing no more, waiting on somebody to tell 'em what they're supposed to be doing today. Nobody comes. That's usually how it goes.