If you have only one copy of data, especially if it is important, the chance of something happening to that copy, either hardware, software, or human error, is always big enough to justify a backup. No hindsight needed for that.
Thinking about this just makes my mind go numb. All someone had to do was have the idea that they should back their database up. It would be done in 5 minutes, tops!
I automated ours on S3 with email notifications in under an hour...
CEO sounds incompetent as hell.