Wow. When I read this I was so struck by just how accurately it captured Google culture. Things that really resonated; The way I see it, Google has four core c

Wow. When I read this I was so struck by just how accurately it captured Google culture. Things that really resonated; The way I see it, Google has four core cultural problems. They are all the natural consequences of having a money-printing machine called “Ads” that has kept growing relentlessly every year, hiding all other sins. (1) no mission, (2) no urgency, (3) delusions of exceptionalism, (4) mismanagement. For history, my first big contribution inside Google was criticized for being "not technical enough." (and that was fair because the technology was straight forward), however it had pushed through the organizational inertia of "don't change anything" across several groups to get into product. My contribution was to skillfully push things through the org without activating the organizational antibodies that resist change at all cost. But this was not a skill that was appreciated at the time by the people that mattered. The second thing was this; Any disagreement with the management chain is career risk, so always say yes to the VP, and the VP says yes to the senior VP, all the way up. People who were there when I was often didn't know me personally, but did know "of" me by my calling out management on their bogosity. I was not so enamored with "working at Google" to bury my irritation with bad faith communications and actions. To the point where I got direct feedback from my management chain that they would have an easier time in "calibration" if I was not causing so much friction. :-) I suggested they might get a lot less friction if they stopped doing the kinds of things they were being called out on. I have never been one of those "go along to get along" people in the presence of basically evil[1] people. When people ask me if they should work for Google this is the litmus test I give them, "Can you suppress all of your feelings of justice or ethics in the face of senior leaders making unethical choices chasing promotion, market monopoly, or additional profits for the company?" If the answer is "no" then I suggest they look to work elsewhere. [1] I know that reads hypercritically, I don't have a good neutral way of describing people who make decisions that help advantage them at the cost of disadvantaging others. Especially when that decision is unnecessary or frivolous.