It's difficult to explain succinctly. SAFe is the embodiment of the kind of enterprise bureaucracy that agile was rejecting. Take a look at the principles espoused by the Agile Manifesto:

* Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

* Working software over comprehensive documentation

* Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

* Responding to change over following a plan

Now imagine what the exact opposite of this would look like, and then take a look at SAFe.

I'm interested as well. 2012/2013ish I was a consultant at Org A that deemed themselves "agile" - in reality a very highly functional agile organization. I've yet to see anything quite like what that org had going for them.

Current company, we literally just implemented SAFe and now that I'm learning the ins and outs of that ... Org A was either SAFe before SAFe was cool or even existed or they are the Satoshi for SAFe. The similarities between what I see preached in SAFe versus Org A are scarily similar and when implemented - highly successful.