>The problem tech companies have is that many of them can be disrupted by a few motivated individuals
I'm convinced a primary motivation for hiring in mega-tech companies is to keep people from making startups to dethrone them. You can't legally compete with Google, etc if you've signed a non-compete.
Non-competes are unenforceable in a lot of places. And even if they weren't, the time scales for a startup to evolve into a serious market mover is longer than most non-compete contracts last anyway.
A founder of a now-popular startup worked for Google eight years ago, so what? Let's say Google remembers and decides to pursue action. They'd spend another 3-4 years suing a person who has a mountain of plausible deniability to hide behind. And for what? There's no real gain to Google for this.
more like they bribe potentially competent founders with a high salary and “perks”, which effectively raises the opportunity cost of making a competing startup.
in this hypothesis most people working for google are actually not needed, but employed there primarily to waste their time
I'm convinced a primary motivation for hiring in mega-tech companies is to keep people from making startups to dethrone them. You can't legally compete with Google, etc if you've signed a non-compete.