Having spent a good number of years in these companies, I can say that there is no shortage of creative and skillful employees there. What kills innovation is t

Having spent a good number of years in these companies, I can say that there is no shortage of creative and skillful employees there. What kills innovation is the lack of real ownership and the feedback-driven politics. Employees with great ideas and ability to execute can't go ask for funding and work on their ideas - those ideas would be either stolen (politics), or priorities would change (no real ownership), they would still have a manager to answer to, and they'd still have to be careful to not cross anyone's feelings for the inevitable complaint will wreck their careers (no real competition). So everyone plays it safe, wears a fake smile and cheers the team even when that team is surely going to sink the ship. The bigger a corporarion gets, the more pronounced this risk-averse safetism becomes. The terminal stage of such corporations is a gov-like bureaucracy where safety is the idol and risk is a slur word.