I've worked in tech my whole life and never heard a dev make these comments are bad claims. I only work in the boring world though. Is this a startup or FAANG or silicon valley thing?

In clean code there is a chapter about eliminating useless comments. I think this has some merits. Think of the following made up example:

sum = sum_two_numbers(number1, number2)

Probably doesn't need a comment.

The other argument is that comments need to be maintained and are subject to decay. E.g. the code they are commenting on changes.

The book goes into other examples but i think the idea isn't to eliminate comments but to be thoughtful and judicious in which you use