I’ve had great coworkers who didn’t go thru the traditional route.

Personally, Google hired me when I quit my first job out of college, before the one year mark, and was unemployed for a few months. It wasn’t a great look on my resume. The vast majority of companies didn’t give me the light of day. These weren’t top-tier companies, and I doubt they could have offered me the engineering experience or career growth as Google. Those same companies look to employment at FANG as signals of competence. 3 years later, they’re spamming my LinkedIn. One of these companies ask candidates for their SAT score and high school GPA.