> In my experience, ordinary lowly FAANG software engineers are expected to treat each other with respect and kindness that is simply unimaginable in average companies.
Strongly disagree. Yes, there are fairly good standards about how you communicate with other people. But competition between peers is higher in these companies, and you can see it. It's hard to form friendships in a SV company for this reason. Less-competitive industries are different. Most people don't really want to be in this kind of competition, and will be friendlier in other situations. But they'll endure these environments for the money.
One of my concerns is that, if this is the only kind of environment you experience as an adult, you're going to start to carry this kind of competitive behavior out into the larger world. And as this corporate culture starts to eat larger and larger parts of the economy, this increasingly will be the only thing people know. This seems deeply corrosive to society as a whole.
It's one of the reasons I like to get out of upper-middle-class professional milieus when I can. People act differently. They're friendlier.
