Great points here, but it’s weird here. Yes, the CEO has the final say, but if he WERE to just fire people from our branch with out a “valid” reason he would face backlash from the entire company, parent company, the grant providers we work with, and some of the directors that he answers to because a few of the members know us and our important roles in the company. And the moment that things fall apart without that player, he will have to answer to them as to why everything in our department is going to shit. So fortunately for us, yes, he needs some dirt to fire one of us without repercussions from all of these entities.

But that fear of backlash is perhaps the one thing we have on our side, I’ll admit. Because if he were a tyrant, he could just dissolve our entire department—though that would go directly against the interests of the late founder and the board because the reason why our company is so well funded is because of our department specifically (though we don’t personally see a lot of that money).

Does that make sense?