It's an odd feeling to have seen the rapid decline of QoL on the interior, know it was to drive margins back above 30% / $25B/quarter, leave because of it, then profit from it. Feels unethical.
I guess that feeling is just having the dissonance of the nature of business in your face. Though I do hold that the decisions made to squeak out a couple extra % points will be crushing in the long run.
Even just today: reality is Google is 4th place to OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta in AI and its not really close.
Each individual step is arguable, but the cracks are there. And leadership is too MBA-y/trend-following to do anything about it. Ex. through August '22 the line was there was going to be a special pot of increased raises to combat all the talent leaving for Meta. Then once Mark started firing, all that went far away, promos were held, and there's ceremonial cullings weekly.
Even just today: reality is Google is 4th place to OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta in AI and its not really close.
Each individual step is arguable, but the cracks are there. And leadership is too MBA-y/trend-following to do anything about it. Ex. through August '22 the line was there was going to be a special pot of increased raises to combat all the talent leaving for Meta. Then once Mark started firing, all that went far away, promos were held, and there's ceremonial cullings weekly.