The Microsoft one was VERY true, at least until the mid 2K's. Small groups with lots of middle managers, bad communication, and hatred towards the other small groups.

Dunno how it is now though.

http://minimsft.blogspot.com is highly recommended for a view into this era.

For MS, it was definitely true when there was the policy of firing the bottom 10% every year or something like that.

It created extremely perverse incentives where nobody wanted to help each other or would even go as far as to sabotage other people's work in order to make sure they're not on the bottom. Some managers would hire people with the intent to fire them later.

It was probably very true 10 years ago, for some of them it has become less true

Apple these days is very traditional with the SLT comprising the various VPs and everyone reporting to them via middle management layers.

In the period where Steve Jobs was not CEO it was a lot more like Microsoft with the various geographical divisions e.g. EMEA, AMR in particular having their own fiefdoms and starting wars with each other. And then of course the ridiculous number of skunkworks projects that would compete with other teams.

Looks about right for Google, but then which software company doesn't look like that?