>the company has slowly shifted from being innovative to being very risk averse, incentivizing not making mistakes, maintaining the status quo, and focusing on

>the company has slowly shifted from being innovative to being very risk averse, incentivizing not making mistakes, maintaining the status quo, and focusing on cutting costs over creating new lasting value This is in large part due to Ruth Porat's relentless multiyear campaign of cracking down on employee perks and salaries at Google, at a time when VCs were throwing blank checks at startups who in turn were poaching the best people with whole-number multiples of their current compensation. This destroyed arguably Google's single greatest asset — its public image as a "dream employer". The lack of innovation and risk aversion are just second-order effects of losing the ability to execute (especially in the context of its ambitions) by being known as a second-rate employer in an industry primarily limited by the cost and ability to attract quality labor. This doesn't excuse Sundar of course, because he was ultimately the CEO through all of this. "The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free" https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...