[promopacket]

There is a running joke within Google that the best way to get promoted is to create another chat or video conferencing app.

Is it really a joke at this point, though?

Googler engineering leaders and teams engaging in the replacement of good chat tech with worse happens every year or two. All to demonstrate "cross-org impact" and climb the promo ladder. This is in fact the driving force behind many of the complaints mentioned in the article.

A sad and systemic failure, indeed.

[slivym]

It really makes you wonder why there is no one in the organisation saying "This is a fantastic new product, with truly innovative work. Why did you feel the need to create an internal competitor to it rather than help make it better"

One of the most destructive issues I see from my time in management has been engineers who are more interested in re-writing what other people have already done. It seems amazing to me an organisation the size of Google hasn't identified the waste here.

[cmrdporcupine]

Yep, "demonstrating impact."

There are apparently some moves afoot reforming the promo process to make this less common though. Here's hoping.