Having left that slice of ad tech/market research: no one is fulfilled by it. Those who project the image that they are, are the most self-deceiving and self-hating.

Are you possibly projecting...? I have so many options in tech that I've never had to consider anything even close to ad targeting and/or social media work.

Not even a little. Never worked on that crap and never intend to. Just making fun of the typical HN Google/Meta/Twitter/etc sycophants.