Dare Obansanjo (a great follow on Mastodon) shared a LinkedIn post from Diane Hirsh Theriault, a staff software engineer at Google. The atmosphere at Google sounds grim. The fact that Sundar Pichai notified Google employees that there will be more layoffs this year wouldn't have helped.

This post does run into the danger of reading too much into one person's opinion. However, this is not the first instance I've heard of people complaining about the leadership and lack of morale in Google. Praveen Seshadri wrote this in a Medium post after he left Google last year.

The way I see it, Google has four core cultural problems. They are all the natural consequences of having a money-printing machine called “Ads” that has kept growing relentlessly every year, hiding all other sins.

(1) no mission, (2) no urgency, (3) delusions of exceptionalism, (4) mismanagement.

The maze is in the mouse (Praveen Seshadri/Medium)

That's a real indictment of the culture and management in Google.

A couple of things stood out from the LinkedIn post to me.

1. Leadership, or lack thereof, is a major problem

Theriault starts her post like this:

My hot take: Google does not have one single visionary leader. Not a one. From the C-suite to the SVPs to the VPs, they are all profoundly boring and glassy-eyed.

Diane Hirsh Theriault on LinkedIn

and it only gets worse from there. There appears to be a lack of direction and a problem with communication. People are being let go seemingly at random which is disrupting functioning teams.

Google has had the benefit of the money machine that is their search for such a long time that they have taken their eye off the ball in terms of new products.

The Google Graveyard is a real problem because whenever Google launches a new service, people are not using it because it could be gone again in a few years. I don't trust Google to maintain their services. That has become their brand to me.

2. There is a fine line between excitement in work and exploitation

There is a pervasive sense of nihilism that has taken hold. "Well, I guess I will just do the job until they fire me." A lot of people have golden handcuffs situations and aren't going to walk away from the salary, but nobody works late anymore. The buildings are half empty at 4:30. I know a lot of people, myself included, who used to happily do extra work evenings and weekends to get the demo done or just out of boredom. That's gone. 

Diane Hirsh Theriault on LinkedIn

I work in the IT industry and I enjoy my job. I have done the long evenings and weekend work. I regret some of that now.

There are times when extra hours are required. Sometimes you just need to drive through to hit a deadline.

When I see people being encouraged to stay late by peer pressure when there is not urgency to the work, that is a red flag for the workplace. What I regret from working in environments like these is that all my social relationships were tied to work. Companies that encourage this behaviour will drain every drop of effort they can from their employees.

The problem is that, oftentimes, I enjoyed myself while working. There's a real feeling of accomplishment when completing a project or learning a new language, framework or technology. There was a sense of camaraderie that developed in teams when hitting targets we weren't expected to. Most times, we didn't receive any benefit. Maybe a pat on the back, some drinks and dinner. Then get back to work.

If you find yourself in a situation like this, take stock if this is something you want. Is this a temporary work schedule? Is this expected even during quieter times during the year? Can you keep working this way until retirement? What will it do to your relationships?

If you plan to be in this industry for the long haul, consider what is sustainable for you. Keep adjusting that baseline as you get older. You could say life gets in the way. That's wrong. Life is what's important but work can get in the way of that.

I liked Nate Jackson's book, Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile, on his experience as a professional American football player.

I remember how highly he regarded Mike Shanahan, his first coach on the Denver Broncos, and how much he distrusted Josh McDaniels when he eventually replaced him. When McDaniels was fired as the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders earlier this week, I wondered if Jackson would write about it.

He did. He notes early in the piece how "it has the air of a lover scorned. Of course I'd say Josh McDaniel is a shitty coach: He cut me". He does make a point to show the lack of success the Belichick coaching tree has had in comparison to the coaches groomed by Shanahan. It has become more apparent how much of the success of the Patriots was related to Tom Brady.

The article is worth reading in full but I liked this part about the importance of coaching and what it is. This goes for people in leadership in general. There are engineers promoted to management positions based on the quality of their code but some just aren't suited to the position. Sometimes all they need is time or training to change their mindset from personal to team success. Other times, they just don't get that it's not about them, it's about the team.

Ultimately, this should be a lesson to everyone in the sports world. If you don’t have the respect of your team, it doesn’t matter how clever you are on the fucking whiteboard. Coaching is about connecting with other humans. It's about paying attention to what they are going through and responding to it. It's about listening to what they tell you. It's about putting them in positions to succeed, challenging them to be their best, and respecting the effort they give you. Honoring their sacrifice. Believing in them. Showing them that you love them, not just as players, but as people. 

It's about setting them to up shine, not running off the brightest among them so you can be the star instead.

The Problem Was Always Josh McDaniels by Nate Jackson