"Armen, did you tell Sean to install python?"
"No".
"Sean, did Armen tell you to install python?"
"Err... no. He said I probably wouldn't be fired."
"Well it turns out he's not right about everything. Here's a cardboard box for your things."
Armen must have known people would know Python had been put on these machines and that he authorised it, in fact what's the point of putting it on them if nobody knows and nobody uses it? I can guarantee you that within 24 hours someone was asking Armen why he'd authorised this and was justifying it. There cannot have been any possibility of dodging responsibility for this decision. If anyone got fired it would have been Armen, with a possibility of Sean going as collateral damage.
This is the big league. You make your decisions and you accept responsibility for them.
The OP said he told people openly that Armen told him he could do it when asked.
This makes no sense to me, what’s the upside to Armen? If he is business savvy, he needs to be gaining something in exchange for having his name thrown around by OP as signing off on this.
>In 2011 Goldman Sachs put its top computer wizard, Armen Avanessians, in charge of the division. He has helped turn round its fortunes. The arm’s assets under management reached a nadir of $38bn in 2012, but it now manages $91.8bn...
You say he reached out to you and asked if you liked Python. He probably wanted to roll out Python and was looking for someone who wanted to do it. If he told someone to do something they weren't passionate about, they would fail. He wanted to make sure it succeeded, so he reached out to you.
If he's such a bigshot and everyone was frightened of him, he must not have been afraid of them. When he said, "you wouldn't get fired," he probably meant what he said. He was giving you air cover. And it worked. When the gnomes came out after you, you just sent them to him. And they didn't bother you again.
I can imagine how the conversation went:
"Armen, did you tell Sean to install Python"
"No, did he"?
"Yes he did!"
"Great!!"
Now the gnomes are on their backfoot and have to defend why Sean shouldn't install Python If this guy Armen told you to do it, Armen has to defend himself to them.