The most relevant thing I can see is that managers can't recognize top talent, especially at larger companies. At a small startup, everyone has a sense of who's

The most relevant thing I can see is that managers can't recognize top talent, especially at larger companies. At a small startup, everyone has a sense of who's involved with what in what capacity so top talent can be recognized sooner. Small companies fear losing their top talent. Large companies prefer to have more easily interchangeable/replaced engineers for ease of project planning/staffing and often don't distinguish top talent from a typical senior level. Titles don't correlate well with top talent, rather tends to be a level of seniority 'how long have they been here and competent' label. The biggest of companies like to hire top talent but don't make good use of them, often seeming like a game of 'keep away' so that they don't work at a competitor or start their own competing company. My own experience is that there are many different forms of top talent and the only way to get efficient utilization is for the employee to themself actively put them on the projects or roles that best suit their skills, whether the manager or company recognizes this or not.