The thing about Google's culture is that it was always dishonest from the start. And it was dishonest because they were deeply ashamed of how they made money. So from the very beginning the culture was built around being "Googley". It put the engineer on the pedestal. 20% time. Moonshots. Infantilizing the workplace (are there still ball pits and slides?). "Don't be evil".
All of that was to paper over the fact that fundamentally this was an ad-tech company and it's hard to get people to go work for one if that's what your brand is (Yahoo is a good example). They did 20 years of recruitment on this lie, and it's finally coming home to roost. The idealists that got brainwashed by this are understandably chafing at the changes happening as Google transitions into a typical big company with a McKinsey alum CEO.
All of that was to paper over the fact that fundamentally this was an ad-tech company and it's hard to get people to go work for one if that's what your brand is (Yahoo is a good example). They did 20 years of recruitment on this lie, and it's finally coming home to roost. The idealists that got brainwashed by this are understandably chafing at the changes happening as Google transitions into a typical big company with a McKinsey alum CEO.