[YZF]

Large companies are incredibly unproductive and inefficient.

That said the unevenness of contribution isn't strictly a large company phenomena. Small companies have the same uneven distribution. I've worked at two startups with about 4 people total and people were not equally productive.

That said, this is not necessarily the goal and productivity is also very hard to measure. It's doubly hard to measure across different types of work. One person can code up a greenfield back-end for something in 3 days while another can spend a week fixing some elusive infrastructure problem.

Not everyone is as good at everything. So we do have engineers who truly are much better than average. And in large companies most are average. But that is just one factor here.

1:1's can add value or they can not add value. Large companies can't just be flat so someone needs to manage people. A good manager adds value, a bad manager might subtract value, but that's orthogonal.

Is it demoralizing to work for a big and inefficient company? Sure. Is it more demoralizing for people who are motivated to get things done and are good at it? I think so. Go start your own company?