Reflecting on 18 years at Google: early Google had a vision, but its culture has eroded, morale is at an all-time low, and healing requires changes at the top
I joined Google in October 2005, and handed in my resignation 18 years later. Last week was my last week at Google.
The significance is not that one departure proves a company-wide condition, but that the critique comes after 18 years at the company and echoes prior accounts centered on transparency, leadership, and mission.
First-order effects
Google loses a long-serving employee, while the public resignation adds another visible critique of senior leadership and internal culture.
The author’s account may reinforce concerns among employees who already view morale and trust as unresolved issues; it does not itself establish that management will change.
Second-order effects
Repeated public accounts of cultural deterioration can make retention and hiring harder in roles where experienced employees weigh autonomy, mission, and confidence in leadership.
If comparable departures and employee critiques persist, Google risks a structural gap between its ability to attract talent and its ability to retain institutional knowledge and internal trust.
The broader issue is whether large technology companies can preserve decision-making clarity and employee voice as they scale; the available coverage signals a persistent concern, not a settled outcome.
The trend: This is one data point in the longer trend of large technology companies confronting the cultural and talent-retention costs of scale, bureaucracy, and diminished internal transparency.
the problem at the end of the day is that Google is a big ad broker despite all attempts to be perceived otherwise it's unsustainable to cast a long term vision fiercely contrary to the economic reality of the company
“Today, I don't know anyone at Google who could explain what Google's vision is. Morale is at an all-time low. If you talk to therapists in the bay area, they will tell you all their Google clients are unhappy with Google.”
Companies don't need to have vision. Sometimes—in fact, usually—the best thing for a company with a very profitable business line to do is to milk it and forward the checks to investors. Separately I'm not convinced that companies with “vision” actually do better.
Among other things happening in tech, I did not expect to see this. It's tragic to learn about Hixie's resignation from Google after having worked there for 18 years. However, I am glad to know Hixie is not leaving Flutter. [image]
Google has a lot of catching up to do layoffs made everyone into territorial wolves, the OG culture is gone, the leadership is visionless and come up with inane coporate policies just SAD source: https://ln.hixie.ch/... [image]
Starting a company with great culture is hard but sustaining that culture over long periods of time is really hard. This post by a Googler who left after 18 years of being employed there is a good cautionary tale for us early stage folks. https://ln.hixie.ch/...
The “thousand monkey” mess that is Android (seriously, look inside the MediaServer code if you want to validate this — you'll throw up) and has NEVER been reimplemented (yeah, its tough due to the API compatibility problem, but not impossible) is a hallmark of this.
This sentence will be seared in my mind forever. Although written in the context of Google, it applies everywhere, including the AI company in question this weekend. https://ln.hixie.ch/... [image]
Pretty damning essay from a Googler, departing after 18 years “I don't know anyone at Google who could explain what Google's vision is. Morale is at an all-time low” “The clock is ticking. The deterioration of Google's culture will become irreversible” https://ln.hixie.ch/... [im…
Treating engineers as commodity is symptom of promoting to mgmt track too early. Predictive in every zombie tech co. The answer is small teams, high autonomy, and firing fast.
@nabeelqu I've worked for Google under Eric, Larry and now Sundar and unfortunately I have to agree. Sundar's tenure brought a lot of bureaucracy and a fight against transparency. I stopped watching all-hands since it's 90% corpspeak. But Sundar is good at keeping the share price…
@nabeelqu This tracks with what I've observed. I applied at Google in 2022 and got in. Then while doing Team Matching, I decided against it because no one seemed to care about their work. They all seemed uninterested, not really driven.
@ASalvadorini ... Yes, that's very sad. :( Makes it even more impressive what the Flutter team has continued to achieve. I'm not sure if it's necessary, but I believe many of us would be happy to contribute if @hixie needed funding to dedicate full time to exciting projects like …
@nabeelqu Basically, yes. Engineers were assigned to work somewhat arbitrarily, decided in meetings they were never invited to, and often based on deals or talks that had little to do with engineering or who they were. The “ramp-up” needed to change contexts between projects wasn…
For info and tech news more relevant to #FlutterDev than current OpenAI turmoil, head over to https://ln.hixie.ch/ and read about @hixie's departure from #Flutter team from himself. Thanks Hixie for all your work on @FlutterDev and glad to read you will continue to contribute