No, that's not the way it works at big companies like AWS, Google, Microsoft (source: me, I've worked at all 3). A large company attracts various types of people. It's not homogeneous like what you describe. Also, there are plenty of opportunities to practice "intrapreneurship" within a large company with lots of resources to impact the world in a positive way.
I don't think he was saying that the people are homogenous, but he was saying that you often get put in a position where somebody way over your head makes a decision that affects your work, and by the time it reaches you, that decision is non-negotiable and unexplained.
I spent 17 years at another tech megacorp and spent the bulk of my time there as an intrapreneur. For me, it was a series of "anointed" roles where I was dependent on (and tied to) a particular sponsor. The sponsor operated on different levels of transparency with their leaders. While I liked the idea of being a "cowboy," it ended up being a serious detriment to my career at that company. The work I did was mostly director and above level, but the recognition/salary was far less. My last sponsor made enough enemies in the "establishment" that he got RIFfed and I got hung out to dry and was RIFfed on the next round.
You can always quit and bootstrap it yourself to capture all the upside. Just beware selling a software engineer salary’s worth of anything is fairly challenging.
You are correct. Companies of a certain size are most always extremely heterogenous. There are good and bad places to be in a company and everyone has a different opinion on where those places are.
It also seems that you have experience working at big tech companies. It's not always so diverse and you can't always operate as autonomously as a team at a big company that just needs technology to operate, but doesn't claim to be in the business of producing it.
