The mistake is to believe anything coming from executives. They are not your friends.
I was in a startup during Covid. The CEO said: "unlike many startups, we just got a round of investment so we are in a really good situation and we won't have to let go anyone, you can be reassured". A week later, they fired a whole team and a few other employees.
Executives are not your friends, and they are not paid to tell you the truth.
Literally the exact thing the CEO of my old Berlin based startup said before our team was laid off / replaced with AI.
Lying is in the job description. I'm convinced that to rise (or be groomed and practically anointed through nepotism and corruption) to that level in business, you have to trade a part of your humanity. There comes a point where wealth and power changes you and I'm convinced that the aspiration of it is really a form of concealed, socially acceptable sociopathy.
So yes. They are not only not your friends, they're outright hostile and you should trust nothing they say and approach every interaction with them as a game and try your best to at least break even.
They likely view you with deep contempt and derision, if they acknowledge that you have any measure of self worth at all. You should act accordingly.
What a sad, miserable take. This is not at all my experience.
Yet 100% my experience. Not really a sad and miserable take. It will do people a whole lot of good to know the kinds of people that thrive in this ecosystem.
Its like politics, highly functional sociopaths rise over time to the top, sane decent folks have rarely guts to have fighting chances against those.
Find life satisfaction from other sources is my advice, but not corporate world and career in such. Thats a sure sign of life wasted on many levels.
Its about 50/50 in my experience. On a barely related note, while at a wedding I met someone whose son works for the Trump admin and swore up and down that Trump is just the nicest person and oh so generous. I'm sure he seems that way to some people if they don't look beyond twenty yards or so.
50/50 is bad enough
You have managers and VPs around who are not lying? How hired such incompetent managers?