alt Hacker NewsNever worked at a FAANG, but from what I read from their cultures I don't think a letter to the CEO from a senior engineer would go entirely unnoticed there. CEO's might receive crazy letters, but hopefully not regularly from their senior engineering staff..
Microsoft has a large PR department to put out such false impressions. The culture has changed, AFAIK you used to be able to email Bill Gates and be fairly confident he would read it, but you better be sure it was worth reading or he would fire you. Now they’re unlikely to fire you but they’re unlikely to read it either.
Senior leadership seems to be more far sequestered now, a bit like Trump, surrounded by lackeys giving them an entirely false impression of the world. That’s how they could legitimately believe they were going to bury the IPhone.