You’re going to base an opinion on a third-hand story? That might not even be true just to illustrate a point?

I know a guy that passed BillG in a hallway and said, “hey, Bill, how’s it hangin’?” (Saw him do it; I was mortified.) Just a bottom-tier IC at the time. 20 years later, he still works there. Still an IC, though, so make of it what you will. :-)

So there, now you have another folksy anecdote to balance things out.

Well, not quite third-hand, the guy was working in my team. But not a US company, not in the US either though.