This story that Google would be destroyed if they had released GenAI tech before OpenAI is BS. Most people I know were instructed to tell people it was because of “responsibility” that GenAI was not out yet, while the entire company was freaking out and playing catch up with OpenAI (a 770 people company!) and promising non existent things to customers. There was nothing ready or thought through. Many people at Google thought they would be dominating AI forever. Little did they know that regardless of having a 170k people workforce, a 700 people start up nearly knocked them down. Google does not use Google Cloud for nearly nothing, also because of safety and security threats. I never understood why they could not be like AWS and use their own cloud. I wonder how long they will keep going trying to sell people something they don’t trust themselves.

About culture: it has deteriorated very much so. Working in Google was one thing, moving to Cloud was horrific and the sign I needed to get out of there. It has a culture that is rotten and somewhat worse than other Alphabet orgs, and tons of individuals with very poor technical acumen. Friends recommend friends who are morally flexible and they end up in Cloud. That is the easiest back door to Google and to a career ruin too given there are very poor execution and scarcity in technology innovation.