alt Hacker News>I have never worked in a company where an obviously incorrect CEO-demanded security exemption (like this one) would have been allowed to pass
You don't have worked in enough companies then.
Just for the sake of argument, you think anybody would have denied Jobs or Bezos or Musk one?
I saw what joining Apple did to a friend in the early 2000s.
(Extreme burnout, did not get rich from the pain. It was just pointless destruction.)