Wait, but Sundar Pichai was there pre google IPO as a Chrome PM, and Neal Mohan was there for 18 years. How are they examples of "doing your time" being a bad strategy?
Not really, in such large companies there's enormous selection pressure favoring career politicians. Maybe some of the survivors did some engineering at one point, but expertise fades fast when you stop getting your hands dirty. Most are empty suits.
Sundar (CEO) is from Mcksinsley.
Ruth (President) is from Morgan Stanley.
TK (Cloud CEO) is from Oracle.
Mohan (YouTube CEO) is from DoubleClick which is Google at this point (~15 years).
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Largely the story of the past several decades is that "doing your time" is a bad strategy. Always move to another company to go upwards.