'Morale is at an all-time low': Ex-Googler writes scathing letter slamming layoffs and 'eroded' culture
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An ex-Googler wrote a 1,500-word letter criticizing the firm and CEO Sundar Pichai's lack of "visionary leadership."

‘Morale is at an all-time low’: Ex-Googler writes scathing latter slamming layoffs and ‘eroded’ culture::An ex-Googler wrote a 1,500-word letter criticizing the firm and CEO Sundar Pichai’s lack of “visionary leadership.”

  • ezchili@iusearchlinux.fyiEnglish
    111·
    1 year ago

    Sundar Pichai has got to be the worst CEO in the silicon valley period

    Google has managed to produce next to nothing of value with a dreamteam of engineers the likes of which no one else had access to

    From one uninspired leadership decision to the next they’ve just been sitting there bolstering what’s already there while every once in a while adding a new product to the Google graveyard

    • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.ggEnglish
      8·
      1 year ago

      They did produce something of value, Stadia, but instead of investing in it further with some exclusive games to show off its capabilities and lure more people and developers in … or just outright signing a deal to paying for the development cost to port some hits or Call of Duty to Stadia, they wrote it off, refunded everything, and shut it down.

      It’s a major fail, they tried next to nothing to fix their messaging issues, failed to invest in areas that would’ve made a difference, and didn’t stick with it to challenge people’s beliefs that Stadia was going to be shut down.

      They should’ve:

      • Made a guarantee that if they shut down within the next 10 years, every game you play will be refunded in full.
      • Did a hardware upgrade to bring Stadia past consoles.
      • Never shut down their in house studios and invested even more into bringing other studios in.
      • Really upsold the cheat free experience (with no client side anticheat spyware necessary) and the ability for the platform to make even the games with the worst netcode stable multiplayer experiences.
      • Made something like steam workshop for Stadia and worked with at least one developer to prove that it works (they said they were open to mods, but they needed developers to take interest)
      • Potentially resolved the “you have to buy all your games again” concern by offering to buy everything on the platform in your steam, xbox, or PlayStation library 1 time (so you couldn’t “import” multiple times or buy new games on another platform and then import them for free).

      Imagine if people literally just pressed a few buttons on their old gaming computer and suddenly could play a bunch of their steam library in the cloud with better graphics for free on any device they wanted. I can’t imagine folks wouldn’t have stuck around with that kind of a deal.

      • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        Made a guarantee that if they shut down within the next 10 years, every game you play will be refunded in full.

        This would have given people confidence, but really doesn’t reflect on Google as a whole, and just reinforces that they as a company will kill things at a moment’s notice.

        I think in addition to all your points, they could have distanced Stadia from Google, and announced a new gaming company under the Alphabet umbrella. The hardware bundles they were selling with Chromecasts probably wouldn’t have been a thing, but I’m not sure if that would have been a bad thing. Having stadia as a completely separate entity from Google may have given it the breathing room it needed to get a good user base, without the stigma of google killing products.

    • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      From a shareholder’s perspective, which is the only perspective C suite executives care about, he’s been the best CEO of all time for Google.

    • namingthingsiseasy@programming.devEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Yup, he’s the absolute worst. I can’t think of a single product that Google has even improved during his tenure as CEO… let alone a product that he successfully launched on his own. All he can do is make existing products more expensive.

      Look at how he completely lost his shit when chatgpt was released - probably a huge part of the reason he lost it is cause he realized he’d have to actually do something useful instead of just squeezing more blood from the collective stone of all Google’s existing products. His claim to fame is creating Chrome. What fucking good is that? Web browsers have existed since the time he was born. There’s nothing to innovate there, and there never has been. It’s clear: he’s not an innovator.

      Whoever takes over after he’s gone is going to be in for a hell of a time. The only thing he’s created for Google is a shit-ton of anti-trust lawsuits. The company is an empty husk at this point. There’s nothing left for them to become.