[silencethendang]

For #2 - I'm not a PE insider, but I'm pretty aware of a lot of corporate dynamics in big tech, which increasingly seems like it's indistinguishable from any other corporate sector. I think we have a habit of thinking of companies/firms as individual actors deciding what's in their best interest, when in reality it's basically an oligarchy of either C-suite execs or boards of directors determining what's going to happen to the rest of the company. If these people want to get rich quick, and I'm guessing they do, since this is probably the end game for 99% of them, then private equity is their answer. They likely don't really care about the employees or the future of the company as an end in itself, just a means to enrich themselves, and so if PE presents this opportunity without those strings attached (i.e. by splitting the dividend recapitalization or the real estate leasebacks with the execs in the form of 'bonuses') the execs/boards will likely take it.

TL;DR - PE can't exist in its current form without extreme power/ownership imbalances within the firms they take over and run into the ground. This has probably been increasing over time, hence why PE has been getting worse over time.