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'Morale is at an all-time low': Ex-Googler writes scathing latter slamming layoffs and 'eroded' culture

‘Morale is at an all-time low’: Ex-Googler writes scathing latter slamming layoffs and ‘eroded’ culture::An ex-Googler wrote a 1,500-word letter criticizing the firm and CEO Sundar Pichai’s lack of “visionary leadership.”

varsock ,

The letter is a post on his own blog . Hard to distill into a summary so I recommend reading it get more context. But it seems to have boiled down to:

  • How It Was:

    • Strong adherence to the “don’t be evil” ethos, focusing on societal good over profits.
    • Open, transparent communication and decision-making processes.
    • High morale, with a culture of learning from successes and failures.
    • Work focused on benefitting the web and users, rather than Google’s immediate interests.
    • Collaboration and lack of internal silos, encouraging innovation and autonomy.

  • How It Is Now:

    • Shift from user-centric to Google-centric, and then to individual-centric decision making.
    • Eroded transparency and increase in organizational silos.
    • Decline in morale and a culture of distrust between employees and management.
    • Focus on short-term financial gains leading to layoffs and defensive employee behavior.
    • Lack of clear vision and leadership, resulting in confused and ineffective management.
    • Overall deterioration of Google’s unique, innovative culture and values.
markon ,

Google has completely lost its way. On my Pixel 6 recently the voice typing doesn’t even work correctly. Although it works sometimes it tends to cut me off where is it worked perfect a few weeks ago. Google is constantly introducing new bugs into Android and into their native apps. I can tell morale must be very low because shit doesn’t work.

onlinepersona ,

the clock is ticking

Down to what? In order for Google to fail in the short term, it would take some really big event. It would have to be something at the level of “Google banned from EU after…” to make Google unprofitable. I’m sure Google can afford losing 500M customers in a short timespan, but not if they reside in an economic region that has great influence over others.

For Google to fail in the long term, its ad business would have to fail. I imagine a few more antitrust cases to make google lose its search dominance would be a big domino.

unreasonabro ,

Who would have thought that overtly replacing your motto in such a way that everyone knows the new default is now “Be Evil” would have a negative effect on morale? Shocking

But hey, they can take the credit for the beginning of modern enshittification, so they’ve got that going for them anyways. Because their IPO was the death of the good version of the internet and everything they’ve done since has just made everything shittier and shittier. Almost like basing the entire society around greed is a mistake or something. whooda thunkit except literally everyone

lolcatnip ,

It was never the official motto.

kandoh ,

When there is this much money involved nothing can survive. Greed is the most pervasive evil there is.

jjjalljs ,

Yeah Google kind of sucks now and everyone paying attention knows. They kill a lot of products and don’t really make anything new and good.

Their search returns too many ads and SEO garbage sites.

They can’t unify on messaging. Talk, hangouts, allo, duo, meet… Just pick one. But I guess that doesn’t look as good on someone’s resume.

PhlubbaDubba ,

Frustrating part is how G+ coulda gone somewhere if they’d not been dumbasses rolling it out

Literally even the circles feature would have been so great

CosmicCleric ,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

On a completely unrelated matter, can Lemmy topic post titles be edited?

Arthur_Leywin ,

The randomness of this comment actually fucked me up for a good minute 🤣

blind3rdeye ,

Should be scolding latte slamming layoffs.

flop_leash_973 ,

I’m sure the MBA’s will starting taking the opinions of the worker bees seriously any day now. /s

KingThrillgore ,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

It’s been a long time brewing with how Google manages projects and people, and Sundar is just the dipshit who’s been helming it. Google needs a rethink, because once the ad market collapses (and it will collapse, they’re helping it along with their crusade against YouTube) they will be rudderless and moneyless.

I really wish I was motivated to finish my transition off Google because right now, storage and email are the two things left to address. And without funding, I can’t keep investing in NAS storage, or be bothered to move off Gmail for a new email vendor (which has its own problems with any non-Google email sinking into someone’s XBL).

Corgana ,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

What are you paying for Google storage that it’s cheaper than NAS storage?

pirat ,

Maybe they’re still on a G Suite Business / Workspace with the storage quota exceeded. Until earlier this year, Google didn’t do anything about exceeded quotas, and many had more than the included 5TB stored in their drive. I’ve seen people who had 100s of TB! I myself “only” have ~25TB, which I’m finally downloading to my local storage these days. When Google began caring about the storage quotas, they froze all accounts with exceeded quotas, blocking any new uploads – but if you keep paying the subscription (~20€), they’ll retain the frozen files for an extended time period of a year or two (don’t remember) after they gave the first notice.

unreasonabro ,

google owns youtube bro. you mean crusade against adblockers on youtube i suppose

ipkpjersi ,

Yep, layoffs tend to hurt culture and trust.

Oneobi ,

Some companies seem to thrive on regular culls in the name of operational efficiencies. All that happens is talent leaves the organisation and then those left behind struggle because expertise has gone.

It erodes good will and good will is something you can’t win back.

By the time things look like they are normalising, in comes another cull!

BaardFigur ,

deleted_by_author

    •
    Oneobi ,

    They become quiet quitters. Barely putting any effort in and doing the bare minimum.

    Folks are not going to bail out company decisions to cull by working extra harder.

    They tidy CV and look for next opportunity.

    zeppo ,
    @zeppo@lemmy.world avatar

    Layoffs while at the same time handing the CEO $200 million for a single year.

    ipkpjersi ,

    Yep, that will definitely help employee morale.

    Mandy ,

    The fuck is a Googler?

    StenSaksTapir ,

    It’s a grown up Noogler.

    OminousOrange ,
    @OminousOrange@lemmy.ca avatar

    The fuck is a scathing latter?

    sebinspace ,

    Google employee

    1984 ,
    @1984@lemmy.today avatar

    It’s a cult where members think they are special because they know algorithms.

    They pay good salaries to grab people who could otherwise create something worthwhile. Now they do shit for Google, like ads.

    spiderkle , (edited )
    @spiderkle@lemmy.ca avatar

    Google’s decisions in the time Pichai has been CEO, have been anti-consumer all the way. Not the fun conpany it used to be, now users are being forced out of adblockers and a products promise is abandoned way too often.

    Pohl ,

    I am probably the perfect google customer. I used google search when it still had an exclamation point. I got my gmail account by invite in ‘04. Downloaded chrome on day one. I used nexus/pixel phones almost exclusively

    Today, ddg search on Firefox. I am using an iPhone. I still have the gmail account but I am slowly migrating away from it. I am done with google. They don’t produce anything that has any value for me anymore.

    June ,

    What are you switching to for email?

    Pohl ,

    Slowly working on hosting my own. Stuff like this is not fast for me since I am a hobbyist and not in tech professionally. But, I’m getting there.

    teichflamme ,

    I just switched to getting my own domain and hosting it as a bundle with the domain provider. The Web client sucks, but I use thunderbird anyways.

    Pohl ,

    That is a better idea than me foolishly trying to get all of it running out of my basement. So many little things that lead to other little things. Right now, my “ditch gmail” project is a build my own router with openwrt project.

    Fuggen rabbit holes man.

    Patch ,

    You can start one on a cloud hosting service tomorrow, and then if at some point you want to move to “on premises” hosting (as in, a Raspberry Pi in your basement) then you can migrate over easily enough. That’s the whole point of self-hosting; all of the data is yours to manipulate and move around as much as you like.

    teichflamme ,

    I would not recommend self hosting at all. The bigger providers usually don’t even accept mail from unknown servers/domains.

    milkjug ,

    I’m exactly in the same boat, been considering migrating to protonmail. Have moved everything else to alternatives except gmail.

    Evotech ,

    I moved to proton mail personally after having Gmail since forever.

    Took a year and I pay 40usd per year but worth it

    madcaesar ,

    How safe / stable is proton mail? Say they go under in 5 years are you just fucked? Or is your setup such that you could move easily? Also is your email just [email protected]? Or something longer?

    ours ,

    I don’t have a crystal ball but Proton is the go-to, privacy-focused email provider. They are based in Switzerland.

    They likely have a way for you to export your emails if they go under or use a desktop email client to archive them.

    madcaesar ,

    It’s less the backup more all the stuff linked to your account. All the sign-ups if they go down fast… You’re fucked 😕

    Flashoflight ,

    I pay for LastPass and would never go back. I know there are other options that people will point out but I’m too invested now haha.

    I highly recommend getting LastPass or something similar. It was much easier to make the transition away from google products

    CosmicCleric ,
    @CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

    As a former LastPass customer, I’m telling you to move over the BitWarden. LastPass has had bad security break-ins.

    Skwerls ,

    There is zero reason anyone should use LastPass when bitwarden exists.

    CosmicCleric ,
    @CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

    There is zero reason anyone should use LastPass when bitwarden exists.

    No, that’s not true at all. Wow, what a horribly bad take that you have.

    There is one very incredibly valid reason why they would use LastPass.

    And that would be, because they own stock in the company.

    Xendarq ,

    The last thing a stockholder wants is more compromised accounts. No, they have to drive their usage rates way down.

    CosmicCleric ,
    @CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

    I’m assuming that the humor did not stand out enough for you to realize.

    Wisely ,

    You can export your LastPass to Bitwarden. It didn’t take me long.

    SuperSaiyanSwag ,

    Close, it’s proton.me

    OminousOrange ,
    @OminousOrange@lemmy.ca avatar

    Or @pm.me, even shorter

    SuperSaiyanSwag ,

    Woah, didn’t know that one. Thank you.

    Evotech ,

    I have my own domain. So I’d lose my emails but I could just move the address. I’d recommend that for sure. In case you want to move to another mail provider down the line it’s super simple.

    I think it’s a bit extra to have a custom domain but it’s super worth it.

    rckclmbr ,

    I’m doing all the same as you

    What I’m not moving away from though is Google Maps and Photos. No good alternatives exist

    physicswizard ,

    For photos, I have been using Immich, and have been very impressed. It has pretty much all the features I want (automatic backup, chronological timeline, mobile/web app, face tagging, semantic search, albums, sharing, etc). It’s a server you self-host though, so setting it up might be a pain if you’ve never done something like that before.

    chriscz ,

    This is super neat

    rckclmbr ,

    This looks good as a self hosted option, but I want something hosted.

    tgxn ,
    @tgxn@lemmy.tgxn.net avatar

    Pay for a cloud server and install it? There’s a hosted option 😀

    rckclmbr ,

    Lol I’ve been a software developer for 20 years, I’m well aware of what it takes to maintain a server. Which is exactly why I would rather pay someone else to do it

    Welp_im_damned ,

    Amazon photos?

    marksson ,

    About Maps, same here. Even looked into paid alternatives, and… There’s not really much of value. I’m disappointed.

    kzhe ,

    Ente? Just started subscribing though… seems good. 99c for base plan is pretty attractive.

    rckclmbr ,

    Looks promising, I’ll keep my eye on it, might give it a go with some photos to test it out. I wish it weren’t e2e encrypted though, I actually like a lot of the features Google provides (tagging/grouping by feature, looking back, etc)

    MySwellMojo ,

    Same, but opera/firefox, Zenfone, and proton Mail. Not really a fan of apple either

    dangblingus ,

    Big oof on the iphone, mate. You can have an android phone with CFW that doesn’t have all of the google telemetry and bloatware.

    PsychedSy ,

    Same. I have my name as my gmail and get an absurd amount of missent emails.

    stolid_agnostic ,

    Hey twin!!

    ezchili ,

    Sundar Pichai has got to be the worst CEO in the silicon valley period

    Google has managed to produce next to nothing of value with a dreamteam of engineers the likes of which no one else had access to

    From one uninspired leadership decision to the next they’ve just been sitting there bolstering what’s already there while every once in a while adding a new product to the Google graveyard

    oce ,
    @oce@jlai.lu avatar

    Has he increased short term profitability?

    EnderMB ,

    As a counter-point, what new services or products have any of the FAANG companies released that the average person uses, over the last few years?

    Big tech was built on a handful of runaway successes, and building on moonshot ideas, allowing engineers to work on “the next big thing” without fear of liability.

    Now, if it doesn’t work, you get laid off. At least if you worked for a startup, you’d get enough equity to make a ton of money if it works out…

    Pichal is shit, but so are Zuck, Tim Cook, Andy Jassy, and the two at the helm at Netflix.

    Corkyskog ,

    You mean MAANA? I genuinely don’t know why Netflix is included, it should just be MAAA…

    ReallyActuallyFrankenstein ,

    MAAA, the sound of a primal scream of agony. Fitting.

    lolcatnip ,

    Also Microsoft should really be in there somewhere.

    Pxtl ,
    @Pxtl@lemmy.ca avatar

    Facebook: messenger for kids, which is messenger but with good parental controls. Believe me as a parent I want more products to look at this.

    Also Threads. Jury’s still out if it wins but it’s a good product.

    Netflix buying the long tail of excellent old Android Indie Games to offer as a platform benefit is a fun idea, jury’s still out on that one too.

    But imho the one that’s winning at product development isn’t faang, it’s Microsoft.

    AWittyUsername ,

    Also Meta Horizon, which was a massive flop. And rebranding Oculus, tbf they are pushing innovation in the VR hardware space. But I don’t want a whole load of Facebook controlled cameras in my house thank you.

    rambaroo , (edited )

    Google is one of the most engineer driven companies out there. Their engineers are simply massively overrated. A ton of leetcoder kiddies got into FAANG companies over the years and a lot of them are just plain shit as professional developers.

    Edit: also the way they evaluate engineers drives them to create half-baked products that get abandoned. It’s incredible how they still haven’t figured out that people want stable, maintained products, not “innovation” that doesn’t actually help anyone and never turns into a finished product.

    SchizoDenji ,

    Their hiring process is the reason why leetcoder kiddies get in there in the first place. 3 seperate coding rounds with questions not even related to the domain that you need to solve in a timer of 45 mins.

    rambaroo ,

    Yep. And they also used to do the stupid brain teaser stuff back in the day. That’s what happens when you hire out of touch PhDs to design your hiring process instead of people with real world experience.

    stolid_agnostic ,

    Nah this one is on the business bros who networked their way through an mba without learning anything.

    rambaroo ,

    Nope, Google hired a bunch of PhDs to design their hiring process years ago.

    stolid_agnostic ,

    This has long been my impression. It’s a plaything for the “elite” engineers aka former children of wealthy people who grew up with tutors but never developed as people.

    IRTc innovation, I’ve also long felt this way. There are so many good products out there but most seem like the software equivalent of As Seen on TV plastic crap that solves some problem that nobody has.

    namingthingsiseasy ,

    Yup, he’s the absolute worst. I can’t think of a single product that Google has even improved during his tenure as CEO… let alone a product that he successfully launched on his own. All he can do is make existing products more expensive.

    Look at how he completely lost his shit when chatgpt was released - probably a huge part of the reason he lost it is cause he realized he’d have to actually do something useful instead of just squeezing more blood from the collective stone of all Google’s existing products. His claim to fame is creating Chrome. What fucking good is that? Web browsers have existed since the time he was born. There’s nothing to innovate there, and there never has been. It’s clear: he’s not an innovator.

    Whoever takes over after he’s gone is going to be in for a hell of a time. The only thing he’s created for Google is a shit-ton of anti-trust lawsuits. The company is an empty husk at this point. There’s nothing left for them to become.

    dangblingus ,

    From a shareholder’s perspective, which is the only perspective C suite executives care about, he’s been the best CEO of all time for Google.

    fsmacolyte ,

    Sure, in the short term. I’ve switched to DDG and I’m not getting another Pixel when I need a new phone, and hoards of tech savvy people are feeling the same way. Dissatisfaction is causing them to lose customers and talent.

    Eventually, they’ll start feeling it in their bottom line. And by then it might be too late to change course.

    mark ,
    @mark@programming.dev avatar

    When you’re ready for a new phone, check out the Fairphone! I got that with CalyxOS. Works and feels just like Pixel, but super private 👍

    Xendarq ,

    Fairphone is amazing but will they ever launch outside of the EU?

    mark ,
    @mark@programming.dev avatar

    Not sure where you’re located but I live in the USA and have it. I just ordered the phone int and then signed up with a US carrier.

    Dark_Arc , (edited )
    @Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

    They did produce something of value, Stadia, but instead of investing in it further with some exclusive games to show off its capabilities and lure more people and developers in … or just outright signing a deal to paying for the development cost to port some hits or Call of Duty to Stadia, they wrote it off, refunded everything, and shut it down.

    It’s a major fail, they tried next to nothing to fix their messaging issues, failed to invest in areas that would’ve made a difference, and didn’t stick with it to challenge people’s beliefs that Stadia was going to be shut down.

    They should’ve:

    • Made a guarantee that if they shut down within the next 10 years, every game you play will be refunded in full.
    • Did a hardware upgrade to bring Stadia past consoles.
    • Never shut down their in house studios and invested even more into bringing other studios in.
    • Really upsold the cheat free experience (with no client side anticheat spyware necessary) and the ability for the platform to make even the games with the worst netcode stable multiplayer experiences.
    • Made something like steam workshop for Stadia and worked with at least one developer to prove that it works (they said they were open to mods, but they needed developers to take interest)
    • Potentially resolved the “you have to buy all your games again” concern by offering to buy everything on the platform in your steam, xbox, or PlayStation library 1 time (so you couldn’t “import” multiple times or buy new games on another platform and then import them for free).

    Imagine if people literally just pressed a few buttons on their old gaming computer and suddenly could play a bunch of their steam library in the cloud with better graphics for free on any device they wanted. I can’t imagine folks wouldn’t have stuck around with that kind of a deal.

    bamboo ,

    Made a guarantee that if they shut down within the next 10 years, every game you play will be refunded in full.

    This would have given people confidence, but really doesn’t reflect on Google as a whole, and just reinforces that they as a company will kill things at a moment’s notice.

    I think in addition to all your points, they could have distanced Stadia from Google, and announced a new gaming company under the Alphabet umbrella. The hardware bundles they were selling with Chromecasts probably wouldn’t have been a thing, but I’m not sure if that would have been a bad thing. Having stadia as a completely separate entity from Google may have given it the breathing room it needed to get a good user base, without the stigma of google killing products.

    Dark_Arc ,
    @Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

    This would have given people confidence, but really doesn’t reflect on Google as a whole, and just reinforces that they as a company will kill things at a moment’s notice.

    I’ve typed up several replies to this but really, I think this is completely meaningless statement. It’s a hypothetical example, and regardless of how it “reflects on Google”, it would’ve addressed the concern and proved they were in it for the long-haul. Perception is reality and the perception of many was that Google is flaky.

    You don’t fix perception by pretending perception issues don’t exist, you take actions that prove those perception issues either never were or no longer are valid concerns. Google making a promise like this would’ve worked towards that goal.

    I think in addition to all your points, they could have distanced Stadia from Google, and announced a new gaming company under the Alphabet umbrella. The hardware bundles they were selling with Chromecasts probably wouldn’t have been a thing, but I’m not sure if that would have been a bad thing. Having stadia as a completely separate entity from Google may have given it the breathing room it needed to get a good user base, without the stigma of google killing products.

    Maybe; ultimately I don’t think this would’ve mattered much. Google is Alphabet’s software tech company and YouTube integration and general Google Ecosystem integration were selling points. If they ever properly leveraged having the Google Assistant integrate into games (like they posed) that would’ve been a really cool feature.

    I mean it tooks Stadia like 3 years to get a search bar. It screamed of a promising product that had a rocky launch, and rather than investing in it (ala No Man’s Sky) they reduced it to a skeleton crew and went all shocked pikachu when that didn’t result in something gamers embraced.

    interceder270 ,

    with some exclusive games

    Sweetie, you don’t just get heavy-hitting exclusives right out the gate.

    In what world does Google shell out enough cash for a game that’s so good it pulls people to Stadia when the developers can just sell their good game on already-proven platforms?

    They’d have to make their own studio or contract it out. I never saw Google shelling out $50m for a AAA game, and small-time shit is stuff people can just get on their phones.

    kungfuratte ,

    That’s the point. They started their own game studio when Stadia was launched and shut it down about a year later.

    They also paid a lot of money for some of the licenses they got in the early days of Stadia. And then someone a pay grade or two above decided to stop this and suffocate the little bit of momentum the platform had gained.

    Snapz ,

    Google became Apple

    PhlubbaDubba ,

    Was GO made during Pichai’s tenure? I don’t use GO but apparently they got the guy who wrote C on it so…?

    lolcatnip ,

    No, Go dates back to when Eric Schmidt was running things.

    antrosapien ,

    No shit that moral too is all time low

    archchan ,

    I would disagree and say that Pichai is a visionary, in turning Google into a monopolistic dystopian megacorporation.

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