Side note with nothing to do with the original discussion: My father decided to be honest and give constructive feedback during his exit interview when leaving a company similar in size and importance to Google. Then most of his peers retired and they asked him to come back and offered pretty massive incentives for a pretty small commitment. When he decided to accept? HR got involved and insisted he not be hired because he was "disgruntled" in his exit interview. So now when I leave a company my exit interview is 100% peachy with a vague cliche about why I'm leaving, and I might tell one or two very close friends who work there why I'm leaving. If I trust a company to value my feedback honestly enough, I probably won't be leaving for a while.