I see a lot of sour grapes on this thread. Lazy engineers complaining about everything they deem unfair!
The promotions are absolutely justified. For a company the size and brand recognition of Riverbed, the number of directors/VPs are too few. Talented people need to be given a career ladder starting from Associate Program Manager, then progressing towards Associate Director, Director, Senior Director, Junior VP, VP, Senior VP, Executive VP, and eventually landing into one of the 17 different C-level titles.
I would even argue one CEO is not enough...for a company as complex as CEO, at least three different CEOs must lead the company. In total, Riverbed needs at least 23 C-level titles (CEO1, CEO2, CEO3, CTO, COO, CISO, CHRO, Chief Data officer, Chief Morals Officer...other titles are needed desperately). 23 is also the number of chromosomes in the. human genome, so you must understand even mother nature has figured out this is the right number of executives over millenia.
Executives, VPs, Directors, Managers, Program Managers, Project Managers, Scrum Masters...these are the real movers and shakers. They run the company and are responsible for innovation and execution. Engineers are extremely overpaid and are code monkeys anyway. Why do we even need engineers in the days of StackOverFlow? Do away with all of them! Imagine how much money Riverbed will save once all engineers are gone? No more stressing about hitting the numbers...Riverbed will be insanely profitable thanks to all these executives, directors and managers, and very soon, it will start trading again on Nasdaq. The shareholders will be happy. Win-win all around.