I'm definitely not playing devil's advocate, I genuinely and fervently disagree with the notion that the brightest minds of our generation work on (or even adjacent to) ad tech.
The only explanation I've been able to come up with for the idea is that some people assume that the "best minds" of our generation will tend to optimize for salary above all else and therefore would (since they're smart enough to find the high salaries) end up working in a FAANG company as a software engineer. That doesn't seem like a very convincing argument (hence, I'm not sure it's actually the origin), but I haven't yet seen a better explanation.
The only explanation I've been able to come up with for the idea is that some people assume that the "best minds" of our generation will tend to optimize for salary above all else and therefore would (since they're smart enough to find the high salaries) end up working in a FAANG company as a software engineer. That doesn't seem like a very convincing argument (hence, I'm not sure it's actually the origin), but I haven't yet seen a better explanation.