Larry Page and Sergey Brin leave, does Google’s “open culture” still exist?

Tram Ho

When 200 Google employees and their allies marched in San Francisco last month, the purpose they set out was to protest company leadership revenge against employees who spoke against Google. But one of the protesters put up a banner with four words that briefly described the deeper purpose: "Save our open culture" – Let's save our open culture!

The famous free-form behavior of the search giant has gradually eroded over the years, as Google has grown and expanded. On Tuesday, the company's future was put to a much bigger question after co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced a major decision: they would leave the leadership of Alphabet – the company. Google's mother, giving way to current Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

Founders are always the ones who go hand in hand with the company's culture. Steve Jobs takes Apple's perfectionism to the next level. Jeff Bezos sets the mission to get customers focused on Amazon. At Google, Page and Brin represent flesh and blood for – and a direct link to – an open, romantic culture that fosters creativity, even if it doesn't immediately bring benefits for the company.

Page and Brin put Google on a platform that emphasized internal transparency, even though from the outside, it was sometimes as obscure as the company's search algorithm. Googlers are encouraged to check out the projects their peers are developing, something unprecedented in Silicon Valley. According to the US scale, the working environment at Google is almost like anarchy – employees can spend up to 20% of their working time on marginal projects in the hope that they can become become the company's next big product.

Co-founders – close friends from Stanford University, who worked together to build a company in a garage – will still hold their seats on the board and still have control of voting regarding public structure. ty. But some employees have begun to worry that the fact that Page and Brin will no longer look after their day-to-day operations will make Google seem to lose the necessary steering in a time that can be seen as troubling silk thread. They wonder that Page and Brin are gone, who will protect Google's culture?

" A few employees really expected Sergey and Larry to take action to fix everything at Google," said the HR organizers at the company. " Instead of steering the sinking ship in the right direction, they jump again."

Larry Page và Sergey Brin ra đi, văn hóa mở của Google liệu có còn tồn tại? - Ảnh 1.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page

Google is facing the greatest challenges to the company's culture in its 21-year history of establishment and development. Tensions continue to escalate between Google management and its subordinates. Activists inside the search giant are constantly protesting against the leaders' decisions, including the signing of an artificial intelligence contract with the Pentagon, as well as operations. The company's operations in China. Most notably, 20,000 Googlers left their offices last November to protest against the company's leaders' alleged sexual assault allegations.

As if to demonstrate Google 's open culture conflict, four former employees once said they intended to sue their former employer for unfair labor practices on the same day. Brin and Page will announce their departure. Former employees who were fired in November accuse Google of firing them for " engaging in labor protection." Google said the employees were fired for violating data security policies, not for organizing groups.

At a rally last month, two of the dismissed employees, Rebecca Rivers and Laurence Berland, gave speeches condemning the leadership seeking to control corporate culture. Both had been terminated by the company earlier because they had access to documents and calendar information that were outside their scope of work, Google said.

However, Google's internal reactions to these dismissal cases show that the company no longer strictly adheres to their commitments related to the working culture as before. " This is not how Google's open culture works or was expected to work," the Google security team told employees in a newsletter about fired employees.

" Ben and Jerry"

In many ways, the changes in leadership at Google this time were both noticeable and silent. Page and Brin have long been out of the company – according to employees and former employees. The duo used to be present at Google's TGIF (Thank God It's Friday) meetings, where the whole company gathers weekly and is one of the oldest traditions at Google.

However, Page and Brin only backstage not long after the march in Google last November. They missed all TGIF meetings this year, except once at the end of May. For longtime Google employees who remember the early days of the company, seeing Page and Brin on stage made them burst of desire. " People still love them like they used to. They were like Ben and Jerry," said one person at the meeting.

For many at Google, the death knell for Google's open culture came last month, when Pichai said that Google would only hold TGIF once a month, instead of weekly or fortnightly. Pichai said he organized the meetings less often because there were a few people who deliberately threw comments made at these internal meetings. Instead of maintaining an open forum for discussion and entertainment, TGIF sessions will now focus more on products.

" TGIF is not perfect. But at least we have the opportunity to ask questions" – Berland, one of the fired employees said during last month's march.

Larry Page và Sergey Brin ra đi, văn hóa mở của Google liệu có còn tồn tại? - Ảnh 2.

A female employee took part in a march at Google last November

In the near future, Pichai could make more changes. " Every CEO wants to leave his mark in the process of leadership, so this is the place to pay attention when he transforms his role," said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies. Tim added that he did not expect any major changes in company culture in the near future.

Before Page and Brin announced their departure from Google on Tuesday, some employees were hoping the co-founders would take an active role soon. When Google employees gathered in May to protest against the " revenge culture" the company's leadership was creating against employees who spoke up about their company, they urged Page – not Pichai – to resolve it. They urged him to " immediately and publicly address the requests made during the march, and re-commit that Google will respond to those requests."

The change in the leadership structure means Page and Brin will continue to be absent from day-to-day operations at the company.

" It seems that has happened a long time ago. The only difference is that now they are officially announced only" – a Google employee said.

Reference: CNET

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Source : Trí Thức Trẻ