I think this is saying the same thing as the author, with the possible exception that the author is operating under the assumption that curtailing one's career at a particular level is "losing." It isn't for everyone, and it's a perfectly rational decision to top out as a really good individual contributor or senior software engineer.

... but at some point in a corporate setting, the job becomes about people, not just technology, because all businesses end up being about people. Deciding not to address that sends a very heavy signal to anyone with authority to put a person in a position of high authority in a company that they don't want that authority. You can't just-write-really-good-code your way towards being CTO or senior VP of anything; eventually, you'll meet the challenge of "Someone else has another idea to do it, and maybe it's worse than yours or maybe it's equivalently good but optimizes along other axes than yours, and if your answer to them asserting we should all use their solution is 'I don't do politics' then the company will use the solution that was advocated for and better, worse, or indifferent, yours will be interpreted as under-supported and routed around."

> well it's their money.

And, indeed, for those of us who don't do politics, it always will be their money and not ours.