If you ask me, one of Google's biggest strategic successes was their ability to convince an entire generation of engineers that they were something other than a company. The way many (otherwise intelligent) people talk about it, you'd think it was a religion.
What you're seeing here is not the shattering of a dream, but of an illusion -- Google hasn't been a scrappy, idealistic startup for many years. It's a fine company, but it's a big company -- a collection of tens of thousands of people, all motivated by different hopes and dreams. No institution of that size behaves consistently, let alone consistently benevolently.
In other words: stop setting up false idols, and your reality won't be shattered when they disappoint you.
What you're seeing here is not the shattering of a dream, but of an illusion -- Google hasn't been a scrappy, idealistic startup for many years. It's a fine company, but it's a big company -- a collection of tens of thousands of people, all motivated by different hopes and dreams. No institution of that size behaves consistently, let alone consistently benevolently.
In other words: stop setting up false idols, and your reality won't be shattered when they disappoint you.