Sorry. It didn't address the concern.
> I know of people who suffered after they left, and a cursory internet search will turn up many more stories.
All outliers. How many people leave a company in frustration? And then how many does the company go after? A tiny fraction! Not even 0.1%, which would be huge. I don't think I can find even one case for the company I worked for. It's not a small company - definitely makes more net revenue than Amazon, and comparable to at least one other FAANG.
> There is no contradiction in what I said, if spending 100 units on a legal battle for a single employee would save them >100 units on the next employee (or as a consequence of an unfavorable legal outcome), then it would be worth the cost.
The conclusion follows the premise, but the premise is extremely rarely true.
> You were generating revenues which financed the project even if you didn't directly work on it.
I never understood the desire to compartmentalize and draw boundaries only where it is convenient for you. Just because it is within my company makes it no different from a medium sized company providing services to another company who is involved in evil, even if those services are not directly related. If you work for a payment processor and provide services to my company, then your own logic would make you as complicit as I am. Your service is helping my company in its business, which raises our revenue, which is funding evil. Why am I complicit just because I am an employee, and not you because your company is providing us a service? We're both providing services to my company. Why draw the boundary only to within the company?
And at the end of the day, this is a hypothetical. I do not know what that technology was being used for. Surveillance was merely something I could imagine it's used for. I chose not to get into the business, but the decision was the equivalent of "Do not go work for any company that makes video cameras, or components for video cameras." I would never suggest anyone follow such standards.
Regarding my 4 points, you missed the point of me listing them. I didn't say all medium companies follow those - I said they usually are some combination of those.
I'd happily work for a medium company that has the positive attributes you speak of. I just have trouble finding them, let alone getting hired by them. I'm not at all anti-medium size company or pro-megacorp. When I apply to companies, I generally get a higher response rate with megacorps than with medium sized companies.
Occam's razor. If you have actual studies/statistics to support your case, I'll be happy to reconsider. But I'd wager I know a lot about the company I spent a decade at than you do.
I worked at a megacorp in big tech for many years. They do not have non-compete clauses (and I'm in a state that allows them). I also never signed an NDA with them. People leave them all the time after disputes and not one that I know of suffered after they left. You contradict yourself in talking about how hell bent megacorps are in making money, and then talk about them spending 100x your salary on lawyers to go after you. Sorry, most "you's" are not worth even 10% of your salary to go after. You leave, and both you and the company move on.
> They could hurt you, and they could make you hurt others. Don’t fall for their propaganda.
This is definitely true, but as the GP said, it's quite simple to leave if you this is the concern. While there, I interviewed for an internal position that involved work for China that sounded to me like part of their mass surveillance program. I don't really know if that was the case, but it was trivial for me to decline their offer.
And I've found plenty of non-megacorps involved in hurting others. They merely do not have the scale that big megacorps do.
It sounds like you're conflating Internet companies, and FAANG, with megacorps. Most megacorps are not one of these.
Some people do get to do very interesting work, although broadly speaking, you are correct - you are most likely going to be a cog in someone else's dream job.
They occasionally do invest in people. They gave a coworker $50K to get an MBA (which cost a lot more, but they did contribute a nice sum), with no strings attached. He left soon after getting the MBA. They really shouldn't be this nice.
As for autonomy, it does seem independent of size. My last job at that company had quite a bit of autonomy. I got to pick the tech stack. Work wasn't assigned to me - I had to go examine the needs of the department and propose solutions - make prototypes and if it seemed useful then make it into an internal product.
> You will probably be much happier at a small to mid-size company.
Compared to where I worked, most of these companies in my area have some combination of these:
1. Pay less (and I don't get FAANG salaries - perhaps 60% or less)
2. Work you as much if not more (my life in megacorp had good work/life balance - and when it didn't, I'd simply do an internal transfer).
3. Are less stable. I spent 10 years in the megacorp. Most people I know working at medium sized companies simply did not have the choice to spend that much time there.
4. Are more at the mercy of market forces, often making it equally unlikely you'll get to do cool work. The need to pay the bills is greater.
I've found that there is almost some sort of conservation law at work. As an example, most small companies where I find average people do real interesting work get paid pennies (as in, many of them could qualify for food stamps). Ditto for work/life balance. A friend worked a tech job in a medium company where he'd routinely go home at 3:30pm. Pay was average, but he had to pay almost all of his insurance (quite a bit for a family of 4). He nevertheless was happy with the compromise of a lower salary.
I'm not doubting tech companies exist that let me work in my city and are better on all these counts - just that they're harder to find and get into then big megacorp.
Not all big megacorps are FAANG - in fact, most of them are not. Do not extrapolate from outliers.