[tmoertel]

But five years ago they had a stronger engineering culture. The old values were rapidly eroding, but some still held.

[tgma]

It's funny whenever you talk to anyone their "five years ago" maps almost to the time they joined the company.

[tmoertel]

For me, it maps to pandemic, which was midway through my time at GOOG. That's when the COVID-sparked Zero Interest Rate Policy caused the company to hire engineers and PMs like crazy. There were suddenly too many new hires to inculcate with the old leadership and engineering ethos—especially via remote work—and the values got diluted, probably beyond the point of recovery.