>>50844804Because Team Rocket was like a hundred times more powerful and influential when he was in charge. Think about the mafia or the yakuza at their height, when a respected member could just sort of swagger around town extorting local businesses for money and off anyone who looked at them the wrong way. That's what it was like when Giovanni was the boss.
They all but openly operated a casino in the middle of the second biggest city in the region, and they staged a takeover of a massive corporation that the police couldn't do shit about. The Rocket grunts might seem like trash to the protagonist (a one-in-a-million prodigy), but in-universe, I'd bet it was a pretty cushy gig.
