I had a summer internship with Microsoft in 2009, then worked on a startup, and recently joined Google NY. So I can't talk about Google changing over time, but

I had a summer internship with Microsoft in 2009, then worked on a startup, and recently joined Google NY. So I can't talk about Google changing over time, but I do have some baselines to which to compare it. IMO it's somewhere between the two, but feels more like a startup than like Microsoft (which I liked, fwiw). I have a lot of the freedom in my work that I'd have at a startup. I have a broadly defined problem and can decide how best to try and solve it. I do happen to be on a relatively new and small team, which could be a factor. I took a couple days this week to add a feature to a popular internal app, because I wanted the feature to exist...didn't ask anyone (other than the guy who owns the app), just did it. I don't think I've been at Google long enough to evaluate how much politicking there is, but I don't seem to have many meetings and as far as I can tell people are happy with me just for being productive. If I were you, I'd interview at Google and, if you get an offer, request to be on a team which is more academic in nature...e.g. ask to be on an AI/ML/NLP team rather than an infrastructure team.