I dont think FAANG employees are better than everyone else, but these two things don’t sound mutually exclusive.

Agree. Just an inflammatory observation that we are prone to both villainize and glorify the institutions that be without much cognitive dissonance. :)

On second thought, "irrationally preferred during hiring" gets at that idea better.

> Also everyone: FAANG employees are better than everyone else!

Rather: FAANG employees are pushed into startups by VCs.

How so? They get paraded around as tokens of competence by VCs?

I've always found it amusing that FAANG pedigree is considered a plus for startup founders when the skill set is not only different but sometimes detrimental.

No, the VCs tell the founder/CEO to hire people who've done it before to help pay down the risks of unknown unknowns (which are real – this advice is overly simplistic but isn't conceptually wrong). This translates into them hiring from FAANGs if they take the advice semi-literally.