For example, “Later that candidate did X, which would have been great for Firebase.”
How often did you take subordinates that weren’t fresh college graduates or former/current FAANG engineers?
We definitely hired non-new-grad non-FAANG engineers. In fact, new grads and FAANG alums were a minority for us.
I don't actually buy this. Environment makes a difference, sure, but if someone goes off and succeeds technically[1] at a another company in a big way they would have succeeded at yours as well. If that person can't succeed with you, then there is something fundamentally wrong with your organization. My experience, though, is that such organizations have much lower hiring bars.
[1] I say "technically" because it's quite possible that the person is not very good technically, but landed at a place where that didn't matter and some combination of non-technical skills led to their success.