But here's a question for you.  How much of this stuff you see is insincere?  Does it rub you the wrong way because it's silly decision making or because the sucking up is entirely too thick for words?

I get respect, relationship building, trust, cultural intelligence, etc.  Insincere flattery is icky.  I get making business decisions based on a relationship too.  He's more expensive, but you trust the guy and he's come through before.  That's honest.  That's human.  But yeah, playing one sucking-up guy off another and choosing whoever grovels the best is just wrong and demeaning.

Being in your shoes basically (keeping it at the engineer vs business model), I see it  all too often.

Entrepreneurs like you do not run major established companies.  They create them, and then the "business' guys run them into the ground.

@Frogboy, two more question. 

1) Why does that bribery work?  Is someone's ego stroked?  (I'd tend to be turned off by it in the same way as, say, uber special review copies of games.)

2) How common is it?

Here's a little golden nugget for anyone reading this-

What's the most important skill or attribute you need to get ahead in a large corporation?

Tell people what they want to hear. That's it. That's all. Oh, and do it in a way that doesn't make you look like a complete used-car salesman fraud. That's why the sales/marketing/business guys always end up running the show, because they've learned that magical little lesson. Technical skills are irrelevant- in fact, the people with the best technical skills and or/creative ability to churn out new products usually end up slotted away in a little corner somewhere, -precisely- because they're so damned good at what they do, and -precisely- because their hard work makes their immediate superiors shine to the rest of the company.

Meanwhile, you ultimately end up with the majority of the upper echelons comprised of people who are expert word-smiths and silver tongued devils.

Now, is this the composition of every board member out there? Not at all. There's always a couple who squeak in who are the real deal, hard workers who got there through blood sweat and tears etc.

But most of the time (and this is replicated throughout all walks of life by the way) You will see that in a major corporate structure/organization those who make the most disastrous decisions tend to get promoted. It's the craziest thing to see, but I've personally witnessed several folks over the years who literally threw away millions of dollars on projects that anyone with half a clue knew would be a complete failure... only to get promoted to director or VP of so-and-so after that very project collapsed in utter failure. Why do these people not get fired for their complete lack of skill or competence?

Because they told their superiors what they wanted to hear. They are able to take anything and 'spin' it into a positive light, regardless of the actual reality.

This can be seen just about anywhere- after the break-up of Lehman and Bear Stearns most of the higher ups from those failed outfits got high paying jobs at other financial outfits. Timothy Geithner, if you look at his actual track record, has been at the helm of several different groups that have tanked and he's been promoted for his incompetence into running the treasury department!!!!!