[wallacoloo]

> you should be thanking hiring managers who turn down candidates who have no regrets about past work at toxic companies

"no regrets" is an important part of this. though it's not quite the precise word i'd like, since your friends could well not regret their choice to stay given the circumstances you outline. what i want is for our culture to fight against antisocial behavior: to encourage the everyday person to give sufficient weight to social impact when making decisions.

"sufficient" is subjective, so as a starting point replace that with "non-zero" and i think we come out ahead: the toxicly selfish (or socially ignorant) are encouraged to behave at least mildly pro-socially, and the friends you mention who tried to leave evidentially gave non-zero weight to their social impacts -- even if they failed -- and would pass such a test.

the world is gray and i don't want a purity test. but that's not a license to ignore our social responsibilities.