Is it just me or do these people simply lose their grip on reality with all the organizational abstractions?
Not sure what you mean about the organizational abstractions. FWIW, I've worked in five startups (sold one), two innovation labs, and a few corporations for a few years. I feel like I've seen our industry from a lot of different perspectives and am not sure how you imagine being at Microsoft for the past 5 years would warp my brain exactly.