Pros
Someone could work at a 10% effort and would still be getting a full salary for multiple years (there are no many places where you could have a second full-time job on the side - if you are fed up and want to quit you may first want to take advantage of this!). At the same time, there are great scientists and great prospects for the ones that really care. That being said, you need to have the protection/favoring of upper management in order to become 'successful' (i.e. to force your inclusion into large grants, to promote you to DOE program managers, etc.); like every other business, the most important things are happening under the table and behind closed doors. Accept it and play along! Keep asking what you want... you are not going to get it all, but you will get absolute 0 if you do not push for your wishes.
Cons
Stanford and the left-leaning narrative are dragging management into 'Diversity and Inclusion' approaches that hurt productivity and performance - the senior management knows that this is not right but they play along for the 'optics'. The Lab was always super inclusive since is typically ran by high achievers and very ambitious scientists who all they care about is performance (hence there was never room for discrimination). Hire approaches that are not based on performance will hurt the lab (long term) and they contradict the very spirit of this magnificent country (USA).
