4 ms·

You don't need a PR campaign to oust Sundar. I think 7 out of 10 Googlers would agree that Sundar is uninspiring and has allowed the erosion of most of what was

You don't need a PR campaign to oust Sundar. I think 7 out of 10 Googlers would agree that Sundar is uninspiring and has allowed the erosion of most of what was good about Google's culture. I left partially because I hated the feeling that "this year will be average - meaning worse than last year but better than next year". Slow downward drift, culture erosion, lack of leadership, lack of clarity, etc. Management isn't leadership, and Sundar is more of a manager than a leader.

jack_riminton 3y ago
Very well put
jillesvangurp 3y ago
My impression from the outside is indeed that the man is a problem. And part of the problem is that the problem is allowed to continue to exist by the Alphabet board. Which means the real problem is over there. They are just looking at the stock price, which is of course fine. Until it isn't. I think the whole point of Sundar always was that he's very obviously not a leader. He's a care taker. I used to work in a big multi national (Nokia) with a care taker CEO (Olli Pekka Kallasvuo) who took over from the man that grew Nokia from a large but insignificant Finnish company to the smart phone behemoth it was around 2005 (Jorma Ollila). Kallasvuo presided over the emergence of the Apple's iphone and Google's Android as the two new competitors that ultimately killed it off. And did nothing whatsoever about it. The man was a bean counter whose job it was to protect the stock price. By the time the Nokia board (under leadership of the former CEO, Ollila) appointed a new CEO (Stephen Elop, an MS executive) with the clear intention to orchestrate some collaboration with and the eventual takeover by MS, it was already too late. Nokia flailed for a few years and MS eventually pulled the plug a year after acquiring what remained of the phone business unit for next to nothing. By then the stock price had tanked, market share was in the gutter, and the value was gone. Everything the board thought they knew about smart phones was no longer relevant. Ollila got removed from the board in the aftermath. People blame CEOs, but it's the boards of these companies that appoint these CEOs, protect them, and decline to fire them when they fail. That's where the problems are. Nothing changes until you fix the boards. It's always fixable with the right people and leadership. Just look at MS post Ballmer. In Alphabet's case, the two founders are on the board and they are the ones that put Sundar in their place. Maybe it's time for them to move on? Of course the issue is that they have a lot of shares (class B) in Alphabet. Institutional investors have about 35% of the class A shares and the rest is publicly traded. So, nothing happens until the stock nosedives. By which time it might be too late.
- pas 3y ago
  of course, but boards are largely impotent. they are too far from the action, don't want to rock the boat even more when things are not going great, and of course management easily bamboozles them with some fancy plan ... but in the end there's nothing they can do, except fire the management. but it requires risk taking, and it's a collective action problem ... so if there's a majority shareholder, maybe.. but usually they are the CEO anyway (or appointed it)
UncleMeat 3y ago
Yeah if I wasn't planning on a big career shift anyway in the next 2-3 years, I'd be out the door at Google. Pay is great, I'm able to be fully remote, and it isn't too stressful to do my day job - but the company feels nothing like it did 10 years ago. You know how there are top down and bottom up companies? My experience at Google now is that it is neither. VPs expect bottom up work and then smash it down whenever they don't like it - but they also cannot articulate what they actually want. I'm constantly being asked to go through prioritization processes that take a ton of time and end with "eh, every project stays at the funding level it is already at."
sangnoir 3y ago
> You don't need a PR campaign to oust Sundar. I think 7 out of 10 Googlers would agree that Sundar is uninspiring Do Google RSUs come with voting rights? If not, then Googlers don't get much of a say on when/how Sundar is ousted - Larry and Sergei do.
- vlovich123 3y ago
  It doesn’t matter if they do. Larry and Sergei have 51.2% control through their class B shares which basically only they can hold and give them 10x votes of class A shares (i.e. RSUs). They still have to be mindful of perception of their employees with how they wield that control, but yes basically they can technically tell the board or any shareholders to go pound sand.
  - theGnuMe 3y ago
    That makes it easier in some sense, you just have to convince Larry and Sergey.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
intexpress 3y ago
Agree but I think it is more like 8/10 or 9/10 of Googlers who would view Sundar as, to say the least, uninspiring. The problem is that the good internal candidates to succeed Sundar have mostly already left Google, or don’t seem interested in taking over. If Sundar left today, it could be that Ruth or TK would end up running Google for a while. That would be much, much worse.

jack_riminton 3y ago

Very well put

jillesvangurp 3y ago

My impression from the outside is indeed that the man is a problem. And part of the problem is that the problem is allowed to continue to exist by the Alphabet board. Which means the real problem is over there. They are just looking at the stock price, which is of course fine. Until it isn't. I think the whole point of Sundar always was that he's very obviously not a leader. He's a care taker. I used to work in a big multi national (Nokia) with a care taker CEO (Olli Pekka Kallasvuo) who took over from the man that grew Nokia from a large but insignificant Finnish company to the smart phone behemoth it was around 2005 (Jorma Ollila). Kallasvuo presided over the emergence of the Apple's iphone and Google's Android as the two new competitors that ultimately killed it off. And did nothing whatsoever about it. The man was a bean counter whose job it was to protect the stock price. By the time the Nokia board (under leadership of the former CEO, Ollila) appointed a new CEO (Stephen Elop, an MS executive) with the clear intention to orchestrate some collaboration with and the eventual takeover by MS, it was already too late. Nokia flailed for a few years and MS eventually pulled the plug a year after acquiring what remained of the phone business unit for next to nothing. By then the stock price had tanked, market share was in the gutter, and the value was gone. Everything the board thought they knew about smart phones was no longer relevant. Ollila got removed from the board in the aftermath. People blame CEOs, but it's the boards of these companies that appoint these CEOs, protect them, and decline to fire them when they fail. That's where the problems are. Nothing changes until you fix the boards. It's always fixable with the right people and leadership. Just look at MS post Ballmer. In Alphabet's case, the two founders are on the board and they are the ones that put Sundar in their place. Maybe it's time for them to move on? Of course the issue is that they have a lot of shares (class B) in Alphabet. Institutional investors have about 35% of the class A shares and the rest is publicly traded. So, nothing happens until the stock nosedives. By which time it might be too late.

pas 3y ago
of course, but boards are largely impotent. they are too far from the action, don't want to rock the boat even more when things are not going great, and of course management easily bamboozles them with some fancy plan ... but in the end there's nothing they can do, except fire the management. but it requires risk taking, and it's a collective action problem ... so if there's a majority shareholder, maybe.. but usually they are the CEO anyway (or appointed it)

UncleMeat 3y ago

Yeah if I wasn't planning on a big career shift anyway in the next 2-3 years, I'd be out the door at Google. Pay is great, I'm able to be fully remote, and it isn't too stressful to do my day job - but the company feels nothing like it did 10 years ago. You know how there are top down and bottom up companies? My experience at Google now is that it is neither. VPs expect bottom up work and then smash it down whenever they don't like it - but they also cannot articulate what they actually want. I'm constantly being asked to go through prioritization processes that take a ton of time and end with "eh, every project stays at the funding level it is already at."

sangnoir 3y ago

> You don't need a PR campaign to oust Sundar. I think 7 out of 10 Googlers would agree that Sundar is uninspiring Do Google RSUs come with voting rights? If not, then Googlers don't get much of a say on when/how Sundar is ousted - Larry and Sergei do.

vlovich123 3y ago
It doesn’t matter if they do. Larry and Sergei have 51.2% control through their class B shares which basically only they can hold and give them 10x votes of class A shares (i.e. RSUs). They still have to be mindful of perception of their employees with how they wield that control, but yes basically they can technically tell the board or any shareholders to go pound sand.
- theGnuMe 3y ago
  That makes it easier in some sense, you just have to convince Larry and Sergey.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

intexpress 3y ago

Agree but I think it is more like 8/10 or 9/10 of Googlers who would view Sundar as, to say the least, uninspiring. The problem is that the good internal candidates to succeed Sundar have mostly already left Google, or don’t seem interested in taking over. If Sundar left today, it could be that Ruth or TK would end up running Google for a while. That would be much, much worse.