I'm very curious why, as a talented designer, would you want these contracts? I mean I understand that I'm sure there is plenty of potential to do something great and I'm sure large companies compensate very well, but don't the inanities of meetings that take forever deter you from wanting to work on these jobs?

I guess what I'm saying is that if I was a talented designer, I would want to work on things I enjoy, namely designing, and not having to deal with corporate bureaucracy. For every large corporate contract, there must be many more interesting projects out there. (or am I being a naive millenial? :)