> At the very least, the higher ups with the view of the overall budget have the power to start projects like that which assign the budget as necessary.
Except they won't because if it fails, their name is associated with it and they will get punished.
Most politics in big companies is about avoiding sins of commission as they are easy to spot--sins of omission are a lot tougher to identify and punish.
The "they will get punished" is a bit extreme. Big corps have both teams trying new things and maintaining existing ones. The proportions vary widely, but things get tired and fail all the time. If people get fired over trying something, that would make a very dysfunctional company. The budget for validating if they can stop some stolen deliveries would not be worth mentioning in most meetings.
Although I haven't been in Amazon specifically, in my experience in corp, the worst that happens to bad mid-level managers is that they're moved to a different project. And that's actually overall bad managers, not someone trying out an idea.
Except they won't because if it fails, their name is associated with it and they will get punished.
Most politics in big companies is about avoiding sins of commission as they are easy to spot--sins of omission are a lot tougher to identify and punish.