> a pre-IPO startup that had engineering gutted by a FAANG (out of retribution, because said startup had poached some key employees from the FAANG). After I left as part of the exodus wave, I learned there was an unlimited budget for hiring employees from the startup, lol.
I was at a company that lost a lot of employees to a competitor. The founders ended up generating similar myths (supposedly based on information from trusted sources) to explain away the exodus.
The reality was that they couldn’t accept the idea that anyone would give their employees such large raises, so the only explanation they could think of was that it was some sort of evil retribution plan targeting them personally for something.
The reality is that FAANG execs aren’t going to spite-hire random engineers at exorbitant rates just to fight a petty battle. Even at FAANG scale, budgets are still finite and compensation plans aren’t approved in a vacuum.
I’d take that explanation with a huge grain of salt. It’s more likely that the company ended up on their recruiters’ radar and they simply offered the engineers FAANG market rate compensation.