The jump from junior to senior means you can self start and have created enough of a network to seek out help. Junior used to be a 1-3 year training period. Senior to principal means you have signififcant positive impact across the company: upper management relies on you to define the roadmap. Most people hang out in ‘senior’ for their entire careers because they never have that drive to stand out. Thats why there are titles like “staff” and “senior staff” to promote people who don’t have what it takes to get to principal.
Grade inflation has spilled over into the corporate world. I’ve interviewed people titled “principal” who would barely qualify as “senior” a few decades ago.
Looking at the last chapter of the essay, there was a lot of illegal activity by lucent in the runup to the collapse. Today, We won’t know the list of shady practices until the bubble bursts. I doubt Tom could legally speculate, he’d likely be sued into oblivion if he even hinted at malfeasance by these trillion dollar companies.