Sometimes the grass really is greener - company culture can be actually incredibly toxic and compensation very below market, but when surrounded by people who normalize it most folks will project that experience out to the rest.
I might be lucky (in a sense I am, but in another sense "all" I've done is work boring normal jobs and have low expenses), so maybe my path is not perfectly reproducible, but that's kind of the point of temptation: it has to be tempting. And quick, easy, sure money is the bait. You'll never even be held accountable. The only cost is looking around at the bad things in the world and knowing it wouldn't have been there without you.
Personally, the only reason I have to continue working these days is to give my kids a better future, so creating a hellscape for them to inherit would defeat the purpose.
They care a lot about prestige. Or at least did before AI. Don’t know what their current hiring practices look like.
Comfort yourself with the fact that you did not have to sell your soul, sit through endless woke sexual harassment videos where you are taught that the white man is the source of all evil, and in endless management meetings.
> sit through endless woke sexual harassment videos where you are taught that the white man is the source of all evil,
In big tech I had fewer trainings than any other org in my career, because they knew time was money.
Just study and get another job.
There’s always been a percentage of luck getting offers from big tech companies, but it’s way more luck than than merit it has ever been.