[azemetre]

How long would you say Google has been like this? Around the time when they realized they had an unstoppable monopoly? IPO? Early years? Always?

[mathteddybear]

In my humble experience some time between 2006-8 and 2013. Unless they hid it that well from us interns.

It's not the only thing that changed. Good thing, my manager joined Google back in these older years, so, for instance, he could say to me that I was "expected to rise to L5" in such a way that I knew it wasn't enforced in our org.