It's what happens when an industry is awash in dumb money. Startups are seen as either half-baked schemes trying to get a cut of the VC funding pie, or cheap R&D labs for the big tech companies in search for inevitable acquisitions. The big tech companies who originally made their money delivering goods or services of real value, squander that goodwill through oligopolistic rent-seeking, engaging in shady anti-competitive or anti-consumer behavior, and endlessly building derivative, short-lived products that users don't actually want in hopes of inflating their moats. In a milieu such as this, engineers become mercenaries because "making the world a better place" has become a tired old cliche, both false and naive. Just a lot of cynicism all around.