Often there's a talent penalty to morally questionable projects.

companies are perfectly capable of compartmentalizing information and also adapt/evolve their messaging so it never looks as bad from the inside. this works for both very large companies and start-ups.

And rational, smart employees can still be gamed with the simplest of tricks, e.g. "What the Thinker thinks, the Prover will prove." -- Robert Anton Wilson https://www.seriouswonder.com/raw-what-the-thinker-thinks-th...

That just means they're crude and oppressive as opposed to smooth and oppressive. If you're expecting the market to fix this problem, it won't.

It depends on how you frame the "morally questionable projects".

There's no talent shortage for 5G.

I see no talent shortage for special forces that go in foreign countries to maim and kill all in the name of freedom and democracy.

Of course it will happen. It's like atomic energy, some physicists decided to not work on it and some did work on it. There's nothing we can do about it.