There is a big leap between them not being the sole person responsible for technical decisions and them not even necessarily having a seat at the table for technology direction. The former is understandable. Later - quite surprising.

I'm not sure what I wrote that's contrary to any of that? Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "probably"? There are a lot of people responsible for the technical direction of a large company of which the CTO is important but hardly the only one.