WHY DO COMPANIES HIRE PEOPLE TO BE IDLE A LOT OF THE TIME?

Summary from the TLDR newsletter

Big Tech employs a lot of engineers, some of whom do very little. Some say that companies do this to keep talent off the market, but that might not be the case. Large projects sometimes require a lot of people to be idle - even if they don't seem like they're doing anything at the moment, they might play a critical role in the process later. Prestige and budgets are also factors that can also lead to idle engineers.