That may be a factor, but I think a lot of it just comes from the tendency of sophomore engineers to want to use all the things in as many ways as possible.
I saw a version of that joke on a BBS in the 90s. I definitely remember the manager progression at the end. But the 90s version I saw also had a very over-engineered Windows version. I wish I remembered more about it than that.
https://www.smart-jokes.org/programmer-evolution.html