I feel like larger orgs have too many incompetent idiots and useless layers of management to appropriately manage people. So you have people extruding AI slop because that's optimal for getting some fucking ghoul middle manager to see you. The guy who fixes bugs and writes useful tests isn't going to impress fucking Joanne who can't even code but somehow is still in charge of the department.

I think this is a big problem at Google. You get rewarded for shipping something, even if that means killing a better product.

Other than that, yeah I guess it's a social game. Getting people to like you matters more than you might think it should.