At least in my academic experience, there are academics that are uniquely suited to academia (for better or worse) and there are “academics” that know what to say to be the business version of whatever the discipline is. Neither is necessarily better or worse, but they’re very different and not doing the same thing. Presumably it’s the latter that fit in well with bigco philosophy orgs.

I will say though I went to and taught at lower tier schools, if you’re going to Stanford or whatever it might be so competitive that everyone has already been screened to be the second kind and will do just fine working in industry.

Interesting! It makes sense, yes, that there are two kinds of philosophers, one more business-savvy than the other. I still think it's wrong-headed to "buy" philosophy in this way, with a business goal, especially of the Silicon Valley kind (because you don't know the answer, and it might very well be that something makes business sense but is "philosophically unsound"). And in any case, it seems like theater to me.

I do picture a modern Machiavelli advising Altman and Amodei ("it's better for AI to be feared than to be loved, so hype away mio signore!"). Not sure it's a nice image though!