A lot of those complaints, historically, are a direct result of Google's culture of being an engineering meritocracy: let everyone experiment, let employees eas

A lot of those complaints, historically, are a direct result of Google's culture of being an engineering meritocracy: let everyone experiment, let employees easily transfer to new teams, and let the best product win. That does wonders for innovation if bureaucracy isn't an issue, but what you've seen in the past ten years is that bureaucracy has gotten in the way of innovation at the same time as Google has refused to adjust it's organization & culture to become more top-down and market driven. Since TK took over Cloud, you've started seeing this wholesale, and now this new "culture" (leadership focus & style) affects the Hardware & Platforms PAs, as well as the new Deepmind. Google isn't an engineering meritocracy anymore, but it's still a great place for engineers overall: wealthy, excellent perks, and some of the best talent anywhere. But, adjusting the culture to be truly market driven and in alignment with a clear purpose has (and is still) taken years, and has created lots of interim pain & suffering [of all kinds, both internally and for customers & consumers]. Google is becoming more like Apple & Microsoft, and if the alternative is "pretend to be like the old Google", this cannot be anything but positive.