There are maybe a few dozen engineers with enough outsized talent to get away with challenging the status quo. Anyone else will be fired and replaced by a ready and willing throng of recent grads eager to put a dent in their student loans.
GP didn’t say these grads were sitting around waiting to get hired.
They just said those are the people who will do your job after you’re fired for not being a team player/trying to upset the status quo.
The recent grads will be hired either way. The point is they vastly outnumber the people who will even make a legitimate attempt to change a corporate culture.
It’s replacemwnt as in, when you get out of the ocean, you will be “replaced” by salt water.
Sheryl Sandberg however, does. Guess who won?
It’s worth noting though that those people probably would never have been hired if Sandberg didn’t turn Facebook into the financial giant it is today.
So, I’d put this story in the “I created you, and I can destroy you” category.
Sandberg is higher on the cash food chain than any engineer.