This Guy Left Google. So What.

I’ve seen quite a few of those “Why I left Google” posts in recent years, and they always struck me as another self-appraisal type of document people felt they needed to vent out to the world. As if leaving Google is such a courageous, noteworthy event in the history of humanity.

“Look mom, this guy is leaving Google - he’s crazy!”. Give me a break, will ya.

But this dude really topped everyone out. I wouldn't consider it as such a big deal, but his Medium post made waves and hit big on the digisphere. Because what's cooler than writing about how Google is no longer cool?

He started by saying he’s leaving Google after 13 years. Yes, you read it right - 13 years. Why does anyone need to highlight leaving a workplace after having spent more than a decade of their career working there? Hello, this is 2018, Millennial much?

In fact, it's hard to find a profile with higher chances of landing any job they desire, than a senior Google engineer. A better headline to this post could have been: "Why I stayed at Google for 13 years where I could have left earlier to pretty much any cool startup or large innovative company in the US".

He then trashes Google’s incompetence and writes “Google can no longer innovate”. That is just utter nonsense. Sure, Google has failed epically with multiple sad releases, most likely for keeping its nature of trying and failing fast. Bad decisions and copying competitors are not signs of lack of innovation, and Google has become such a behemoth that it's impossible to generalize it for one trait over the other. Some of its organizations aren't innovative relatively to competitors, and some are cutting-edge and leading the world to the future.

Also, “innovation” is largely misconceived as something that needs to happen frequently, like every 2 years. But in reality - Google only exists 20 years - in which it has been able to be a dominant force in everything digital - search, online marketing, mobile, video, maps and the list can go on forever. And let’s not even mention the futuristic products it’s now investing in, from IOT, autonomous cars, etc.

A hundred years from now, if an historian will call Google's first 20 years as non-innovative, they will better have their CV ready the next day.

Anyways, if someone wants to leave Google, great. I don’t see why it should make headlines anywhere, unless there’s something uniquely interesting behind it. If they do it after being there 13 years (to join Grab, the Uber of Southeast Asia), that’s just plain non-news to me.

Oh, and wouldn’t it be funny if Google buys Grab? :)