Not really. Worked for 5 companies, 2 were ruled by fear culture (including an explicit stack ranking of employees every 2 quarters, with the bottom ones being fired), one by desperation, one by... inertia maybe. The 5th is Google. Still can't figure out what it's ruled by exactly, but absolutely no fear, yet it mostly works. That's why I'm sticking around, I guess.
I've moved teams and orgs quite a bit, so I don't think it's just me being lucky with a manager. If there is fear, it's in quite isolated pockets.
At least when I was there, google seemed like an island with melancholic, but smart and kind pandas who never had to compete for food, for the food was brought to them by a ferry, and never had to do any work, unless they had a spark of curiosity that made them explore an interesting rock or mess with sand on the beach. All pandas were consistently exceeding expectations, even if they slept on a tree most of the day.
+1, if anything, its frustratingly the opposite from my perspective (i.e. its hard to find peers who want to dig into things, the SWE is the center of the universe, personal lack of interest is enough to refuse work)
