It depends a little what the larger culture is at the company and what the stakes are.
If this is a collegial environment where people are unlikely to get fired, then a "late epiphany" is unlikely to be strategic behavior. It might be unselfaware ego, sure, but it probably isn't a person setting out to screw you.
If this is an environment with internal competition and stack-ranking -- if this is Amazon, where "leaders are right", and you lose the ability to be seen as a "leader" if you ever acknowledge a mistake -- then absolutely you might see this as a nasty strategic behavior.
Compared to many other industries, Silicon Valley has more-competitive people, higher stakes, and shorter tenures. You are more likely to see this there, I think. And people who have only ever seen that environment will probably be more on the lookout for it. Hence the attention it gets in this thread on HN.
If this is a collegial environment where people are unlikely to get fired, then a "late epiphany" is unlikely to be strategic behavior. It might be unselfaware ego, sure, but it probably isn't a person setting out to screw you.
If this is an environment with internal competition and stack-ranking -- if this is Amazon, where "leaders are right", and you lose the ability to be seen as a "leader" if you ever acknowledge a mistake -- then absolutely you might see this as a nasty strategic behavior.
Compared to many other industries, Silicon Valley has more-competitive people, higher stakes, and shorter tenures. You are more likely to see this there, I think. And people who have only ever seen that environment will probably be more on the lookout for it. Hence the attention it gets in this thread on HN.