I'd say also, I currently perceive Google/Facebook as a place to "slow down". They're big enough and have enough resources to do anything they want, so it seems like there's gonna be a lot of people just hanging out and going the slow route.
Having worked in a startup and midsize environment and now at Google my experience has been the opposite. Getting to focus intensely on one or two projects at a time allowed me to push the needle on velocity. I don't push as many LOC, sure, but that isn't how I measure impact or progress. At Google I can make measurable, verifiable impact using a development cycle the loops over a few days. It's very hard to do that even at midsize companies.
These stats are important for disseminating competitive information about the job market to job seekers and small companies. If Google et al own all the salary and resume data, then they have an unfairly outsized effect on the market.
I don't know where you've gotten that impression. Neither of those two companies got to where they are by having a culture of slowness.
Any team you're on doesn't have all of the company's financial resources at its whim -- rather the team has a set budget and quarterly objectives and everyone's breaking their back to meet them like in any other company. And if your team doesn't deliver, then your promotion won't happen... and most people are working towards that promotion.
There is absolutely nothing slow about it.
My visibility is limited (don't work at FB/Google), but I have several friends and ex-colleagues who do and I have to say, I have the same impression that it's a company for people to slow down.
They're already at the top of their game and I think assuming everybody there is an A-player is misguided. It's more likely you become another cog in a giant machine with limited reach for better or worse.
There's a lot of politics and while it's true everybody wants a promotion, it's clear to me (at least from my sources) that promotions are more about learning to play a game according to their rules rather than being a fast, high-achiever.
Not everybody wants to have financial resources at their whim. But some people are happy getting to the office 11am, moving a button 1px to the right then 1px to the left once in a while, and then leaving at 4pom. From what I heard, if you're ok with that, a place like Facebook or Google is great.
Again, I don't assume it's the norm, but I heard enough to make me think "slowing down" is very doable.
You can get around it by having multiple changes going in parallel, but it's still a lot of overhead. I don't think it was just me either. This seemed to be a common complaint. Maybe it's fixed by now?
This is going to vary a lot depending on the team and where you are working in the stack. Lumping Google and Facebook together and saying "there is absolutely nothing slow about it" seems too strong, though.