How hard is it to survive at FAANG companies?

Telling it as someone who comes from very Humble backgrounds(not IIT/NIT/IIM/ISB) and working in FAANG, it's pretty difficult. You are always considered lesser capable than those who have already been in the system from past few years and it's always your job to continuously prove you calibre.
At times you have to work a lot extra just to deliver better than those around you, your performance is assessed relative to the team and you somehow never should be amongst the bottom performers within your team else your promotions are screwed and you might be put in PIP/Focus.

The reality is you don't have to be a genius to work at FAANG.

You have to be either lucky or a genius to get into FAANG though. There is also another way that if your startup gets acquired then you have an easy way inside. Some of my friends in SF got into FAANG that way. It is although not a replicable strategy because it is very rare.

The bigger these companies have become, the older is the software that you will probably be assigned to maintain. This is not fun. Maintaining is boring while creating is more enjoyable.

If you have worked for a tiny company and their web site goes down, you can fix it in the morning. If you work for FAANG, and anything goes down, it’s everyone online even at 3am.

However, it is mostly chill once you get inside. Easy to survive as long as you can do corp-speak lol.

It’s very difficult to survive in Amazon these days. Culture has become so toxic in every team. Every year you are expected to raise the bar from previous year’s performance.

This becomes unsustainable and not worth the experience

Absolutely correct. The key is cracking the interview. Any yes, luck matters

Amazon is the worst place to work. Despite being one of the top performers they will put you in pip.