Well, it's been a few years since I worked at Intel, but I'm guessing it's just a misalignment of incentives. It's not that some people inside Intel don't real

Well, it's been a few years since I worked at Intel, but I'm guessing it's just a misalignment of incentives. It's not that some people inside Intel don't realize who their friends are, it's just that those who do realize who their friends are do not get measured on treating their friends well. Nor does their boss, nor their boss's boss. Until their boss's boss does get measured on how well they treat Intel's friends. Then the friends get smothered in a bunch of distracting attention. You get what you measure for. Intel measures a lot. Intel fails to measure some important things. The same is probably true of any company with hyper-focused management. Maybe even your startup.