Google Cloud is experiencing extremely rapid growth and is on its way to significance in Google’s bottom line.
YouTube, though mature, is still important for profit growth within the company.
There is undoubtedly duplication within the company, but I don’t know of a simple solution for it.
Max was passed over because of the engineering interview process at Google, which hasn’t changed for a decade. It is orthogonal to recent developments within the company.
I agree with Max, but I don’t think there’s anything more to read into it other than the fact that Google is extremely risk-averse to making bad hires. Part of this is due to an almost government-employee-level of process related to performance-related firings. An employee could likely be idle for a year before being fired.
So the hiring process is a rational response to a highly irrational retention policy.