In the late 90s/early 00s I worked at two large tech companies that at the time were household names. Granted one no longer exists and neither are what that phrase would evoke today.
In neither case did we do waterfall as people describe it. If anything it was even less process than agile. Sure the gantt charts existed, and sure at a high level things had been drawn out. But in the boots on the ground teams things were a lot more ad hoc. The biggest difference I see from that experience today was that individual developers were handed larger pieces that'd take weeks or more, and had a lot more freedom of action.
Not sure I'd call it better or worse to common scrum setups, but likely a bit of both.
In neither case did we do waterfall as people describe it. If anything it was even less process than agile. Sure the gantt charts existed, and sure at a high level things had been drawn out. But in the boots on the ground teams things were a lot more ad hoc. The biggest difference I see from that experience today was that individual developers were handed larger pieces that'd take weeks or more, and had a lot more freedom of action.
Not sure I'd call it better or worse to common scrum setups, but likely a bit of both.