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Maybe they're not as smart, so someone has to tell them them what to do.
The smartest people often don't have the most marketable and impactful ideas. You usually need someone whose IQ is closer to average to think of things that an average person would buy. That is why there are PMs as well as engineers. Engineers can help PMs refine their ideas and make them practical. Where a lot of companies go wrong these days is they assume that anyone with a near average IQ would make a good PM, which, of course, isn't true. Also PMs sometimes believe that they, somehow, are smarter than the engineers, and engineers are essentially just factory workers. These two things are why a lot of products (and companies) crash and burn.
You didn't show enough value despite cooking the Rice so upper management asked you to go with their conviction. Ideally you should disagree and commit. Try to do better project vision /story next time.
Don't self-project. Not everyone is as incompetent as you or people you work with. There are countless instances where despite showing great value, a data-driven high yield strategy and well-presented customer-centric story, upper mgmt makes decisions that don't make sense. In fact their decisions get proven wrong too in 3 to 4 years but by that time they most likely move or take retirement.
Are you including hiring you as one of their mistakes?