I wouldn't say Google et al hire a lot of generalists per se, more like they hire generics: people who intellectually know fundamentals to a depth that can be u

I wouldn't say Google et al hire a lot of generalists per se, more like they hire generics: people who intellectually know fundamentals to a depth that can be used for anything, vs. generalists, who have experience in a range of things and an amount of big-picture sense. Generics don't need experience to be useful, generalists don't need fundamentals, so to speak. (IMO, rhetorical, not hard-and-fast rules, don't @ me)