> And then the Google pedigree thing is obvious. Youngish startups with a little money just starting to build their team past "a co-founder and these two recent grads" are hungry to get FAANG alums into leadership. I don't know whether that's a good thing for them to care about—maybe it is—but they do seem to show a very strong preference for them.

It generally isn't a bad idea for inexperienced founders to have some insight into how larger tech companies operate. Especially when it comes to scaling, knowing how companies typically handle this can be quite valuable.