Startups rarely use MDM solutions, that's a thing when you hit >> 1000 users because you need dedicated teams to hand-hold the MDM.

I've worked in two 5k-10k companies in the past 10 years with 80+% of MacBooks in the fleet, all managed through MDM and as an end-user I never experienced issues. Unsure how the IT folks felt about it but they managed it pretty well if I didn't experience any problems for so long.

Neither of those claims is true in my experience. MDM is par for the course for SOC2, which is increasingly popular these days, and managing MDM seems like one of many responsibilities of ops teams.

I managed 1000 computers and a few hundred iPads by myself. No team required. HIPAA covered entity.