It is ashame that those bad apples consist of corporate climbers who are getting undeserved, even undisclosed promotions.
These are the ones who only pretend to work but have no real interest in making honest contributions to the company.
This support starts at the top with the CTO.
And there are other problems coming from the top.
The CTO is really hurting the product by always taking the easy shortcuts and never standing up to do the right thing.
The ones he reports to far away in corporate may be hearing what they want to hear and presented with information they want to see in a neat, tidy package.
But his decisions are putting everyone's future (employees and shareholders) at stake in the long run.