[pi-squared]

The Googleyness is weak with this one. Inferiority complex. Work-life balance problems (work over xmas break, late night after work). Not being able to stand for oneself (salary, reschedule meeting). Wanting everyone to like him (literally said it). Seems to dismiss other people's jobs and even names as being less important than his.

Nobody's perfect, we all have some bad things in our personalities. But it's impossible to read this and extract the value that he tries to convey that Google as a company didn't accommodate him (dismissing the design of buildings or noogler's orientation) rather than he tried too hard to be liked and perceived as valuable member.

[zaphar]

For context the G+ team was viewed add being run in a very ungoogley way during Vic's tenure. It sounds like the OP had the misfortune to be hired into the worst run project at Google at the time.

[ganeshkrishnan]

Unfortunately in big companies no one is valuable. If someone is, the company has a problem.

[adrianmonk]

I don't think valuable should be seen as black and white, although companies and employees both make that mistake in different ways.

Irreplaceable is an extreme version of valuable. Companies are right to avoid that extreme. But they shouldn't take it so far that they are allergic to admitting that employees have value. Any current employee who is right in the middle of the bell curve has value because, while they could be replaced, they are a known quantity.

From the employee side, there can be a temptation to believe that because you're not exceptional, you're not valuable. Even if you're merely average, that is OK, and you need to accept that you are a worthwhile member of the team. If mentally you can't claim the position you rightfully deserve as your own, then you believe something wrong about the world, and like any wrong information, that will corrupt your decisions about how to act.

[pi-squared]

That's the point of companies to de-risk relying on a single person. You can still be a valuable member within your team, among peers, some of which you may even call friends.

[tschwimmer]

In 2014 Google paid a guy named Neal Mohan $100 to refuse the head of product job at Twitter.[0]

[0]https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/neal-mo...

[pgodzin]

$100m not $100