The #1 issue with big tech is that the major players are under-utilizing their talent base. It's never been easier to start a software company (idea, laptop, Stripe Atlas, AWS/Azure/GCP.. GO!), and yet the over-all number of new business in America is declining.
The threat of anti-trust, and perhaps trust busting, will spur competition and innovation. The US owes it to it's future citizens that STEM talent is not underutilized before it's too late, I support efforts to end this stagnation.
For many startups, the only goal is to get acquired by the big players. We know fully well that acquiring competition is a perfectly viable strategy to reduce competition. It's a win-win situation for founders, investors, and the big companies.
The founders and investors get a huge payday, the big companies get useful IP and employees, and are free to bury the product (see google graveyard).
It's sad. When startups release amazing stuff, they put pressure on the whole industry to up their game; consumers get better products, companies are forced to innovate, and good by-products come along.
I don't feel underutilized. In my area of research I am working on what I know very well. I am getting paid far more than I could hope to make running my own business (if you account for the fact that many businesses fail and very few become unicorns). People say we are just optimizing ad sell, but I work in security and am getting to work on very cool problems in the space. I know what being underutilized feels like and I do not feel that here.
It would be nice if the big high-paying tech companies instituted some kind of profit-sharing or internal VC kind of thing. The worst part of working at these places is when you feel like the work you do is kind of pointless and that you are constrained by what management wants you to work on.
Or they could do part time. I'm sure there are a lot of people making $500k/year who would be perfectly fine working two days per week for $200k/year instead.
The threat of anti-trust, and perhaps trust busting, will spur competition and innovation. The US owes it to it's future citizens that STEM talent is not underutilized before it's too late, I support efforts to end this stagnation.