There seems to be significant opportunity to zig as others zag. Imagine the Intel letter saying "we are going to take advantage of the current hiring environment to scoop up talent, and push forward on initiatives."
It's like fashion, humans follow trends, almost always, and in the case of big companies, the CEOs are quite wealthy and that means the people they hangout with, the parties they attend, and the general circles they are part of, is pretty small (not that many people at that level of wealth), and so they're all mostly part of the same "clicks" that talk about and share the same ideas.