In the last few months, Google has seen a succession of executives departing, some in pursuit of new opportunities, others to focus on their AI ventures. Facing intensifying competition, regulation and investor expectations, the company is currently going through a defining period.
Over the past few months, there has been a shake-up in Google's executive team, with many of the company's prominent figures leaving their roles for new challenges or opportunities in AI. Prominent among these changes were CFO Ruth Porat, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, and Urs Hölzle, Google's eighth employee. Wojcicki had been with Google for over 25 years, since its founding when she lent her garage to founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page as an office. She will remain in an advisory capacity, but will also "start a new chapter".Robert Kyncl, YouTube's chief business officer for 12 years, also left Alphabet for the position of CEO at Warner Music Group at the beginning of the year. David Lawee, a CapitalG founder and Google employee the last 17 years, stepped away from his role to explore new interests and spend more time with his family.The changes kept coming, with Hölzle announcing he'd be leaving management roles at Google after 24 years to become an independent "individual contributor". This was followed by Porat stating she'd be leaving her role as Alphabet's chief financial officer after 8 years to tackle a new set of challenges.Regarding the changes, a spokesperson for Google said, "We have a steady and experienced leadership team, many of whom have been with the company for well over a decade. We also have a strong bench of leaders at Google who can smoothly transition when people who have had long and successful careers here decide to pursue new opportunities inside and outside the company."
As Google looks for new executives to replace Porat, the company is also trying to define itself during a major period for them. Last fall, OpenAI made headlines when they released ChatGPT, a chatbot powered by AI, and Google was suddenly in a new spot; if users could get answers for the chatbot, how much longer would they use a search engine? This was ironic, since CEO Sundar Pichai had been talking up their "AI-first" approach for years, but with no visible results. In June, Googles executives stated to staff that users were not content with the search experience, and Pichai highlighted that Google is still the most trusted search engine. Geoffrey Hinton, known as the "Godfather of AI" and one of the most prominent voices in the field, declared in May that he was leaving Google after ten years to raise awareness of the potential dangers of AI, which he believes are arriving even sooner than he had initially predicted. Before that, Google had arranged an AI team reorganization and promoted the CEO of DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, to oversee AI for the entire company, and James Manyika, a former McKinsey executive, became the Senior Vice President of Technology and Society, supervising Google Research. Jeff Dean, from Google since 1999, was named Chief Scientist in these changes, but he was essentially taken out of a major role in AI and put into a role as an individual contributor overseeing Gemini, one of the company's major language models. Moreover, they had to reduce costs, a rare situation for them. Their core search product is facing a variety of problems, such as users changing their behaviour, fewer advertisement revenues, and the large financial investment needed for the AI boom, all while the economy is slowing down and investors are pushing for lower spending. In addition, multiple legal cases have been filed against Google, including an upcoming antitrust trial that suggests the company blocked rivals from their search distribution channels.
In recent years, employees' perception of Google have shifted. It remains one of the most desirable workplaces, with attractive perks, but has also become more bureaucratic. This has created a "fragile moment" for Google due to competition from OpenAI and Microsoft. This was highlighted by Praveen Seshadri, a former Google employee, whose Medium post went viral earlier this year. He described how Google has become a maze of processes and bureaucracy, trapping its employees like mice. Noam Bardin, the former Waze CEO who left Google in 2021, also shared Seshadri's post on LinkedIn. His blog post France couple years earlier showed how employees are no longer incentivized to build Google products.
The impact of Google's growing bureaucracy has been seen in the many AI specialists who have quit Google, with eight of the creators of "Transformers", an integral part of the ChatGPT infrastructure, departing in the past four years - five of whom left in 2021. These departures have created their own AI companies, with more control over projects and speed. Clay Bavor, a long-time Google product executive, left in February to start an AI company with the former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor. Similarly, Llion Jones, who departed Google this month, has started his own AI company.
Google has attempted to move quickly with nimble teams, but faced criticism from employees and investors in its Bard rollout in March. However, with updates and successful developer conferences, its reputation has rebounded. SGE (Search Generative Experience) has yet to be released to the public, and Google has only become more firm in its attitude towards employees, introducing badge tracking and attendance monitoring in performance reviews. Real estate spending has been reduced, swag items are being taken away, and in January, Google experienced its first-ever mass layoffs, without providing the entirety of employees' approved leave times.
Leadership did not meet employee expectations, who believed the company had previously encouraged of kindness, humbleness, and open-mindedness. Sundar Pichai addressed this in an all-hands meeting, arguing that Google culture can still be enjoyable without the money and perks. He encouraged employees to remember the fun of its small and scrappy beginnings. It is now upon Pichai and the next guard of the company to recreate the magic of its early days while under increased pressure to generate revenue.
Commentaires