Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is valued at $1.6 trillion, and its sales and profits are increasing every three months. Google has become increasingly ingrained in the lives of ordinary Americans.
Noam Bardin is a former Google employee, and ponders a question often asked of him. “I’m asked all the time why I left now. I’m not sure why I stayed so long.” When Google acquired the mapping service Waze in 2013, he departed the company. According to Bardin, some executives are departing and letting everyone know why. They claim that Google’s employees are becoming more outspoken and that the company’s troubles are pouring into the open.
As Google’s innovation challenges worsen, Sundar Pichai warns the company’s “risk tolerance will go down.” Many of Google’s difficulties, according to executives, arise from its CEO’s leadership style. According to them, the corporation is hampered by a paralyzing bureaucracy, a proclivity towards passivity, and a concentration on public opinion.
Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, has been chastised by nine current and former Google executives. He allegedly mulled over issues and put off important business and personnel decisions. According to the executives, Google’s workplace culture continues to be roiled, and his attempts to cool things down have resulted in problems festering. Internal Google surveys on Pichai’s leadership were positive, according to a Google representative.
As CEO, Pichai is confronting a difficult situation. The firm is dealing with regulatory issues both at home and abroad. Politicians on both the left and right share a common distrust of the corporation. Even his detractors acknowledge he has so far avoided ruffling lawmakers’ feathers or giving his opponents more ammunition by navigating those hearings.
Pichai has been with the firm for a long time. When Google was acquired by its parent company, Alphabet, in 2015, he was named the firm’s new CEO. In 2004, the former McKinsey consultant joined Google and rapidly displayed his ability to deftly navigate a workplace filled with strong egos and sharp elbows. But as cracks appear in Google’s carefully cultivated facade, papering over troubles might be harder to do than one imagines.
