Many of the k8s founders have left google. Google doesn't use it internally. I'd actually start looking away from gcp at this point for k8s, given google's history of dropping stuff that they're bored with.
Many of the founders (e.g. Brendan Burns) are still working on Kubernetes, so I don't see how that's relevant. Google is heavily invested in Kubernetes, and so is a bunch of other companies.
According to googlers here on HN, Google does use Kubernetes internally via GCP/GKE. But clearly those apps are in the minority, given Google's huge investment in Borg.
Coming from KubeCon Europe, I can confirm that Google is anything but bored from k8s.
Google's spring-cleaning has nothing to do with their open source projects. Kubernetes is one of their most widely used open source "products" and the industry is creating an incredible community around it with several big players that could easily jump in to take over project leadership and financing.
It is actually a good thing that some k8s founding members left Google because they already got what they wanted to achieve and went on to work on stuff that Google probably wouldn't have prioritized as much, see Ark and kssonnet.
Kubernetes is IMHO the platform for cloud native applications for the next 5+ years.
Not wanting to use it because Google dropped everyone's darling (Reader) is rather naive.
I mean, they just announced a new container runtime called gVisor to further increase security for containerized apps. It's pretty clear they want to be able to offer fully managed multi-tenancy Kubernetes clusters that execute untrusted code.
Google does not just drop enterprise products and services. They definitely have a problem with consumer (messaging) apps, but that's completely different.
According to googlers here on HN, Google does use Kubernetes internally via GCP/GKE. But clearly those apps are in the minority, given Google's huge investment in Borg.