[blippage]

That's pretty much what I expected.

"Delusions of exceptionalism". When a company becomes large and successful (I've heard similar stories about Microsoft), delusions of exceptionalism inevitably occur. There's a feeling of "manifest destiny". The employees are "the best and the brightest" working at one of the most successful companies. Egos are sure to become inflated.

Google has a cash cow which hides a lot of inefficiency. For sure, Google has a lot of talented people doing a lot of clever things. The majority of which is wasted. You could probably get rid of half of the employees and even achieve a better result.

What you want is something like another Bell Labs/Xerox Parc/Skunkworks. How many people? Less than 1000, I'd say, max. The rest can carry on moving dialog boxes from the top left of the screen to the top right, or whatever it is they do.

[more_corn]

The whole best and brightest thing was 100% a phrase people tossed around there. The interviews are notoriously difficult. Because “we only hire the best”. But there’s a trap smart men fall into. Intelligence leads to success, success to arrogance, arrogance to error, error to failure. I don’t think it’s the rank and file you need to get rid of.