You raise a very good point. If you join a company with the goal of retiring in the same company after a a 40-year career, the incentives are much better aligned than with contractors. Maybe the demise of the 40-year career in modern companies is one of the bigger elephants in the room
I'm not sure you even need a 40 year career. In my current (Tech/Software) shop, the Distinguished Engineer (Lead engineer for a group of ~2-5k engineers). Can very quickly learn your name from your successes and failures. The highest priority projects will pull talent from these successes. In the span of 2-4 years you can go from sub-assembly 1234 to lead of (biggest project).
In theory, you can pivot the entire knowledge "supply chain" to a different problem in 1-2 years in this manner. Shifting a contracted supply chain could take decades if it was even possible.
