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'Morale is at an all-time low': Ex-Googler writes scathing latter slamming layoffs and 'eroded' culture (www.businessinsider.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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'Morale is at an all-time low': Ex-Googler writes scathing latter slamming layoffs and 'eroded' culture::An ex-Googler wrote a 1,500-word letter criticizing the firm and CEO Sundar Pichai's lack of "visionary leadership."

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Made a guarantee that if they shut down within the next 10 years, every game you play will be refunded in full.

This would have given people confidence, but really doesn't reflect on Google as a whole, and just reinforces that they as a company will kill things at a moment's notice.

I think in addition to all your points, they could have distanced Stadia from Google, and announced a new gaming company under the Alphabet umbrella. The hardware bundles they were selling with Chromecasts probably wouldn't have been a thing, but I'm not sure if that would have been a bad thing. Having stadia as a completely separate entity from Google may have given it the breathing room it needed to get a good user base, without the stigma of google killing products.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

This would have given people confidence, but really doesn’t reflect on Google as a whole, and just reinforces that they as a company will kill things at a moment’s notice.

I've typed up several replies to this but really, I think this is completely meaningless statement. It's a hypothetical example, and regardless of how it "reflects on Google", it would've addressed the concern and proved they were in it for the long-haul. Perception is reality and the perception of many was that Google is flaky.

You don't fix perception by pretending perception issues don't exist, you take actions that prove those perception issues either never were or no longer are valid concerns. Google making a promise like this would've worked towards that goal.

I think in addition to all your points, they could have distanced Stadia from Google, and announced a new gaming company under the Alphabet umbrella. The hardware bundles they were selling with Chromecasts probably wouldn’t have been a thing, but I’m not sure if that would have been a bad thing. Having stadia as a completely separate entity from Google may have given it the breathing room it needed to get a good user base, without the stigma of google killing products.

Maybe; ultimately I don't think this would've mattered much. Google is Alphabet's software tech company and YouTube integration and general Google Ecosystem integration were selling points. If they ever properly leveraged having the Google Assistant integrate into games (like they posed) that would've been a really cool feature.

I mean it tooks Stadia like 3 years to get a search bar. It screamed of a promising product that had a rocky launch, and rather than investing in it (ala No Man's Sky) they reduced it to a skeleton crew and went all shocked pikachu when that didn't result in something gamers embraced.