> "I thought it was a widely-known-secret that at least part of the insane hiring of engineers without clear teams, projects, etc for them to work on initially

> "I thought it was a widely-known-secret that at least part of the insane hiring of engineers without clear teams, projects, etc for them to work on initially was to prevent individuals working for current-or-potential competitors." It's widely known among the sort of person who tends to believe in conspiracy theories, I suppose. The oppressive bureaucracy and misaligned incentives that allow senior leaders to destructively compete among themselves is more than enough to explain why ill-conceived and ill-run projects are common at FAANG-level megacorporations without resorting to making things up.