> This pattern—massive outlays followed by poor, possibly-rushed possibly-underpowered workmanship—sounds remarkably like corruption.

I worked at a medium-sized company that went through a phase of hiring ex-FAANG people, thinking we'd improve our quality by implementing FAANG practices.

It did the opposite: The ex-FAANG people were absolutely masterful at self-promotion, office politics, and collecting wins for themselves while shifting blame for anything that didn't work.

The strange thing was that many of them were actually good programmers when it came down to it. It seemed like they had been conditioned by their FAANG employers to put self-promotion and survival above everything else, which turned into an extremely toxic trait once they were removed from FAANG managers who were playing the same game. The company had to steadily ratchet down the levels of trust and independence granted to teams, while steadily increasing the amount of management oversight and process to keep them within bounds.

Now whenever I see famous builders and founders leave FAANG companies out of frustration, I get it. The big tech company game has deviated very far from execution.