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What Happened: Diane Hirsh Theriault, a software engineer at Google, criticized the tech giant's leadership on LinkedIn earlier last week. Theriault asserted that the company lacks visionary leaders and has been conducting random layoffs for the past six to 12 months.
Theriault described Google's leaders as "profoundly boring and glassy-eyed," stating that the company hasn't launched a successful executive-driven initiative in years.
The employee also criticized Google's approach to product development, comparing it to the BogoSort algorithm, where elements are reordered randomly until they land in order.
According to the post, Google's executives are trying to steer the company towards artificial intelligence (AI), but without a clear vision.
Meanwhile, layoffs continue across various departments, including engineering, sales, support, UX, product, data science, and SRE.
The employee also highlighted a growing sense of nihilism among the staff, with many choosing to just do their jobs until they are let go. The post ended with a lament for the loss of Google's once magical work environment and the fear-driven atmosphere that has replaced it.
According to Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets Justin Patterson, Google CEO Sundar Pichai's quest for "durable cost savings" might have harmed the company.
"While we expect layoffs will be more modest than 2022's, we do believe Alphabet may have unintentionally harmed productivity by creating uncertainty over which roles will be affected," Patterson noted.
Why It Matters: This isn't the first time Google's leadership has been called into question. In November, former Google employee Ian "Hixie" Hickinson criticized Pichai for displaying a "lack of visionary leadership" and disinterest in maintaining the ethos of Google that made it a successful company.
He also stated that the employee morale at Google is at an all-time low and that therapists in the Bay Area would say that all Googlers are "unhappy" with the company.
