I’ve never worked in big tech, but I have seen the same dynamics play out in much smaller orgs.

If you’re constantly nitpicking and expressing concerns, you become “that person” who’s constantly negative about other people’s ideas. After a while people tune out; they already know that you’ll find “problems.” We all know these people. No one really likes working with them. Thus they’re _not effective_ at what they’re trying to do.

Ultimately you mostly get credit for shipping things that work, and only rarely for preventing the mistakes of other people.

At its core, what the blog post is saying is: keep your powder dry for when it matters. Not every problem is going to make the company insolvent. Not every concern will prove correct. Pick your battles strategically.

It’s good advice no matter the size or nature of the org.

Yeah, ultimately you're paid to deliver results. Criticism is only of value to the degree that it leads to better results; there is zero value in predicting failure per se. Some people place so much value on being right that they lose sight of the actual goals (and I won't say I'm immune to this, but marriage helped). Nothing with a high upside is low risk, so as en employee you need to inherently frame all risks in terms of identifying the most likely path to succeed.

The only alternative is to advocate for inaction, but then why are they paying you? Those kind of bets can make sense for private equity investors, but not for employees, and my builder-brain just finds them dull and annoying.