Google Culture and Keys to Success - 1

What gets you in the door will not be what keeps you there and helps you survive. Yes, it's more about survival, not success at the big G.

I was at a Citibank a few years back and this one agent found out I worked at Google and was impressed. He said that he had a friend from MIT who didn't even get into Google (NB: the bank agent never asked where I went to school). I either said nothing or just said "oh". Internally, I was thinking, Google's loss. There's an expression, I might've wrote on it earlier: A leaders hire A people, B leaders higher C people, etc., basically that less capable and more insecure leaders don't hire those that are smarter than them and hire people they hope will be more compliant. This expression holds very true for Google and absurdly so for Google Ads and external facing roles.

There was Google the startup and there is now Google the corporate giant (evil empire to some) that has done away with the "don't be evil" value (which was always more superficial and performative anyways). You will save yourself disappointment and mismanaged expectations if you separate Google into its appropriate phases. Originally Google was seeking to hire the best, and for better and worse, equated best = top tier school, when they wanted innovation, creativity, scrappy. Current Google wants compliance and yes-men, which goes against the mantras of most, if not all top schools, that like to proclaim that they're graduating the next generation of leaders and like to brag about the companies founded by their graduates. You'll be hard-pressed to find any undergraduates from top 25 schools hired in the past 3-5 years that love Google (a huge contrast to the Google portrayed in the Internship). Those from top schools that have been around for longer, have built their tenure and influence and succumbed to the "golden handcuffs" or just the fact that they are more mature adults now with other priorities other than joy from their work.

So Google denying people is not the flex people have thought it was, but more about the company and its leadership's growing insecurity and narcissism. And at Google you're more likely to be manipulated and exploited if you have a variety of skills and experiences vs valued -- as has been talked about in the running joke about the founders hiring MIT engineers to service their yacht or just press buttons at work.

Ok, so Google hires people based on if they can already do the job and if they can do a (unknown) future job at the company, true. That's why it's good for your current job title to match the Google posting, and for you to talk about how you had an impact and went above and beyond in your current role. Don't expect to have that kind of impact at Google, understandably because the company wants to build to scale quickly and the company does not appreciate critical feedback or risk, the last 2 will get you a negative assessment (again I refer you to Google's lack of innovation -- the Pixel is still an iPhone knock off. Sure, it's good, but is it innovative?).

Google hires you based on your ability to learn, but within the box of where they want to put you. Your input ends after you sign your employment contract with them. Not all companies do this. There are global companies that consider individuals in the re-org and team strengths and weaknesses, but Google does not. For VP and above, mostly long-tenured folks from the start-up days or those from acquired companies, the other Googlers are just faceless numbers that (not who) can be replaced -- the company has said the quiet part out loud with the mass and rolling layoffs. There have been so many studies about bad leadership and lacking soft skills in big tech and Google is the standard.

An example, senior leaders put introverts in sales roles and the unwritten understanding is that introverts should be grateful to be employed. The leaders actually commend themselves for being so understanding and benevolent. I've witnessed a leader in the presence of another leader smirk at the frustration of someone dealing with personal issues and horrible communication skills on their team; many of these leaders are actually psychopathic.

So yea, the keys to success at Google are being compliant, existing where you are told to exist, and only being visible where told to be visible -- that's why you have so many Google LinkedIn influencers. LinkedIn is an approved space for Googlers to promote the Google brand, and it helps them get a following for post-Google. Like with other places, figure out what the leaders want and do that, but you have to get it in writing because it could change by the month and most definitely by the quarter. Schmooze. Laugh and smile at the bad jokes and just have your name and image appear on a regular basis even if you didn't contribute anything substantive. It's not about the work that you do, but about doing the right work at the right time for the right person to see.

Absolutely don't come to Google thinking your ideas matter or that you'll have an impact. You know how hard it is to search for mail in gmail from your phone? Only recently was a disclaimer added about that, but it hasn't been fixed because there is no short-term profit there. Threads was able to fill a Twitter/X gap, but gChat was nowhere in sight as it was too risky and not on the radar of VP level or above.