Not saying every company should blindly buy big laptops for any software developer. But I am saying that penny pinching on their laptops might not be the smartest thing. Save 90K vs. destroy flow state for 3000 people on a daily basis. One of those things could really cost you; it's probably not the 90K. Big companies can be short sighted like that. Big companies incentivize mindless penny pinching like that. Nobody even questions it when it happens.
If I work for myself, I do question these things. IMHO if you are a freelancer or a consultant, having proper equipment to do the job is not optional.