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Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

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Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#81

Post by sianemo »

treprinum wrote: post #12

"And I just want to clarify that, through these changes, people feel it on the ground and sometimes people write back and say, ‘Thank you for simplifying.’" Is there any mandatory training for CEOs to first understand when somebody is kissing up, second evaluate how devastating is cherry picking rare positive feedback to the company's morale? I can't believe top people can be so inept.

Pichai doesn't need to sincerely believe what he's relaying here to benefit from it, he needs only believe that by saying these things he can steer employee discontent to back within a manageable margin. Therein lies the ineptitude.

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#82

Post by brokencode »

ungreased0675 wrote: post #74

I’m not sure Google leadership appreciate how fragile their search business is. The core product has slipped significantly in quality and is ripe for disruption. From the outside, the company looks rudderless, coasting along on (significant) momentum.

Yup, time to bring in the consultants and MBAs, let them turbocharge the stock price by laying a bunch of people off and switching to single ply toilet paper, and cash out quick to pay for a new mega yacht.

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#83

Post by kajecounterhack »

solardev wrote: post #65
parineum wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Same story with the Pixel phones and Samsung Market share wise but not feature wise. Everyone is chasing them in regards to photo quality.

A bit out of the loop here... who are you saying has the better photo quality now, Pixel or Samsung?

I think they're saying Pixel is leading everyone in still image quality.

Pixel is assuredly NOT leading in video recording quality though. And the overall package still matters: for example X% superiority in still photos didn't make up for Pixel 6 having a very small photo buffer / a slow camera startup speed. Didn't make up for lens cracking issues in Pixel 7. iPhone just works.

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#84

Post by MikeTheRocker »

solardev wrote: post #46
MikeTheRocker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hoping they're building a commodity AR/VR operating system -- essentially spatial Android. They've already announced a partnership with Samsung and Qualcomm so I've got to imagine some interesting hardware is coming soon.

Meh, I hope they don't chase the VR train and instead focus on making Search actually usable again. It's soooo bad these days and actively getting worse, with ever more ads and SEO crap.

With >150,000 employees, I think they can probably do both

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#85

Post by curt15 »

quatrefoil wrote: post #71
andrewstuart wrote: post #14

Its amazing that the CEO of Google is still there after wholesale wrecking of developer trust over many many years.

Having briefly interacted with the founders of Google a couple of times, I'm pretty sure it's by design. I think that at some point, they recognized that Google must turn into a big, boring company that communicates in platitudes. There is no other way to do it when you have 150,000 employees, trillions of dollars at stake, and every regulatory agency in the world wants a piece of you. Even in the late 2000s, when Go…

Does it actually take 150k employees to produce Google's output? They grew by like 30k employees since 2021 but I'm not seeing correspondingly more or better products.

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#86

Post by vineyardmike »

throwup238 wrote: post #57
utopcell wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean, Google is one CEO change away from turning it around, like Microsoft did ?

More like Sundar is one bad conference away from a viral video of him running around on stage covered in sweat yelling "Shareholders! Shareholders! Shareholders!"

Google is mostly owned by Larry and Sergey, so as long as they’re happy, nothing can be done. And they can have that discussion in private. Sundar just needs to smile through any conference and keep going.

My guess is that he’ll say some off color on a hot mic or email leak. Considering his lack of effort in addressing Caste issues at Google… that’s possibly an issue. Could be antitrust stuff too. He’s been in hot water lately.

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#87

Post by twojobsoneboss »

vineyardmike wrote: post #73
proc0 wrote: post #47

I've wondered about the connection between organizations at the human level, and entropy. Nothing can avoid the increase in entropy, not even teams and their work culture. The processes used get old and unwieldy, domain knowledge becomes fragmented, features take longer and have more bugs, etc. Perhaps this is inevitable, but maybe organizations could become aware of the changes in entropy and try to do the equivalen…

“Refactoring at the org level” sounds like re-orgs and layoffs. I think it’s unavoidable. You hire to grow, but growth changes you. You can’t layoff to un-grow and return to former self because they layoffs take a toll.

We need UBI and less dependence on private enterprises for basic human needs like income to survive and healthcare

Would give both companies and individuals more flexibility and dynamism

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#88

Post by away271828 »

pcloadletter_ wrote: post #24

I think you're just in for a rude awakening if you expect the Google from 20 years ago. It's no longer a scrappy startup, it's closer to Microsoft at this point.

Companies grow and they have to change. I was at a company that grew to about 10x the size of when I joined. It was still pretty successful but it was a different company. I didn't have the freedom and flexibility, there was more process, etc. Not as fun but you really can't run a 10x company like you run a 1x one.

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#89

Post by blindriver »

andrewstuart wrote: post #14

Its amazing that the CEO of Google is still there after wholesale wrecking of developer trust over many many years.

The stock is near all time highs and revenues keep growing. That's the only thing anyone outside of the employees care about.

The only thing.

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#90

Post by blindriver »

DanHulton wrote: post #76
vondur wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is still making money every quarter. Doubt they will get rid of him.

They're gonna make money due to inertia for a while, until suddenly they won't, and then there won't be anything left to use to salvage the situation. When that happens, there are going to be a whole lot of "Whatever happened to Google?" articles that are going to be easy to sum up as "a long history of shortsighted decisions by inept management finally added up to more than the older history of good, forward thinkin…

Except that revenues have been growing for years under him and the stock price has skyrocketed. I personally think he's a terrible CEO but it's impossible to argue to anyone that cares that he should be removed until at least revenue or the stock price drops.
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