Comment by ryandrake

I've also seen bad "lower level" managers fail downward. But I think at some point on the manager totem-pole, you become this weird "invulnerable royalty," and always fail upward. You never see VPs get fired and move back down to 3rd-level managers. You never see SVPs get fired and move back down to being mere VPs. They always get fired and then move over to Dell or Intel or something at an even more senior level than they were at their previous company.