That all could well be true, and altho I feel like Michaels could certainly be the stereotypical 'pitiless showbiz boss' at times, I do get the sense that based on what the heavyweight comedians have said about him (starting with the very first cast), that he's arguably a better media boss than most.

If I understand correctly, he's moreso been a guy under fairly unique pressure from the bosses above to consistently deliver ratings, and comedy isn't exactly like that, and he's pushed back when he can in a lot of cases, including going to bat for various comedians.

The firing of Norm MacDonald is debatable either way, of course.

Me, I don't have a 'finished' opinion of Michaels, but I want to say that he's a better boss and human than you'd usually expect in his position, which is yeah-- the ability to fuck with underlings lives in various ways.

That all said, the various realities of what new hires need to do in order to get a proper audition go back to... I don't know when. Probably to the dawn of civilisation. So I wouldn't say that's off the table there, with the female (or possibly male) comedians not being willing to talk about that unless Lorne Michaels was a complete monster like Weinberg.

(sorry my lack of proofreading, but I'm not feeling too well)