The secret is networking. I don't have the numbers but annecdoteally what I saw was every (and I mean every) hire at Director level and above at big tech was a friend (or friend of friend) of someone at that company.
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I'm going on 10 years of management with another 6-7 years of IC experience. I'm starting to see directors at big tech companies that are not only younger than me, but with far less management experience. Granted, I did get a few unlucky breaks - first startup got acquired and the parent company brought their own execs in, second startup promised me a director role but wasn't a good fit, and my current role is in a bigger tech org and they're not promoting from within and all recent hires are from the C-suite's previous company.
I could probably go to a smaller company and be a director, but that would be a step back in terms of scale and money.
A lot of companies aren't hiring in the US like they were, so growing organically seems like a poor strategy.
Is there a secret I'm missing?