Google invited these long-term problems onto itself (and so did many other startups) by marketing a culture aside from their technology that got people to join them. "Do good" they said, which invited people to judge them and decide to work there based on whether they continued doing good.

Compare to other companies that were not so "hot" that just promised some less fulfilling employment, but no strong moral or global cause.

Now it has come back to bite them in an employee culture that feels the need to talk about politics at work, invite college-level-immature debate in internal forums, redirect the business with non-business-related concerns -- especially chasing each year's latest fad of social concern.

They now feel the pressure to become a more grown up company, one that has to stomach having customers who hold the same ideals as they do. But every business has to blind itself sometimes to customers who use your product in ways you didn't intend or choose to. That's the cost of being a public company.

I'm exhausted even just watching Google have to tune its morals for the new political flavor of each season. I say, all for the better, for it to act like a normal business.