Google was changed by two things, neither of which were much fun. But very understandable. One was the transition to a mature product line. In the early days i

Google was changed by two things, neither of which were much fun. But very understandable. One was the transition to a mature product line. In the early days it was about how do we do cool new things that will delight users: Gmail, Google Maps (Where 2), YouTube. The focus was on user growth and adoption. Then growth saturated and the focus turned to profitability: Getting more value out of existing users and defending the business. That shift causes you to think very differently, and it's not as fun. The second was changing market conditions. The web grew up, tech grew up, and the investment needed to make a competitive product skyrocketed. Google needed more wood behind fewer arrows and that meant reining in all the small teams running around doing kooky things. Again not fun, but understandable.