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Comment by drubio | Hacker News Reader

> Take Jeanine Banks, for example, who manages the department that somewhat arbitrarily contains (among other things) Flutter, Dart, Go, and Firebase. Her department nominally has a strategy, but I couldn't leak it if I wanted to; I literally could never figure out what any part of it meant, even after years of hearing her describe it. Her understanding of what her teams are doing is minimal at best; she frequently makes requests that are completely incoherent and inapplicable. She treats engineers as commodities in a way that is dehumanising, reassigning people against their will in ways that have no relationship to their skill set. She is completely unable to receive constructive feedback (as in, she literally doesn't even acknowledge it). I hear other teams (who have leaders more politically savvy than I) have learned how to "handle" her to keep her off their backs, feeding her just the right information at the right time.

What a shellacking. I never heard of her, so did a quick search, she's on X/Twitter https://twitter.com/femtechie ; and yes, her Linkedin vanity url is, get this: https://linkedin.com/in/winner

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I worked in the org that Jeanine now runs. It had a series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level.

To call out Jeanine and only Jeanine in language this harsh feels wrong. From my recollection and from what I have heard from people still working there, she is par for the course.

Also I am almost never the person to bring this kind of thing up but ... there aren't a lot of other black women in leadership at Google. Makes this targeted attack feel worse.

> there aren't a lot of other black women in leadership at Google. Makes this targeted attack feel worse.

Are people of specific races to be put beyond criticism?

If she is in fact "par for the course" and the failures of that department were at multiple levels then that type of criticism is certainly suspect. I give you a C- at attempted strawman though.

This seems like a bizarre mid-representation of GPs point. They sated she was “par for the course” for that department. Meaning everyone was bad, not just her. And found it concerning she was the only person they singled out.

The author worked under her at least during their time working on flutter; which was their most recent experience at google.

Pretty much yes if you want to stay employed. Hixie can speak up now because he left.

The department could be one of those "wilderness" assignments where you send somebody you don't wanna fire but also don't want to have a big impact. A useful place to help someone develop their executive leadership skills, or keep those with really bad skills from wreaking havoc.

Thank you - also why target someone who has been there for only 2 years.

It seems she, being his direct manager, was a large part of the reason he decided to leave after 18 years. There is probably a lot of anger and frustration. I do agree this part of the post could have been phrased better.

Where does the author say that this VP is his direct manager?

It's Ian Hickson - the co-creator and lead of the entire Flutter project. He described her in his post as "Jeanine Banks, who manages the department that somewhat arbitrarily contains (among other things) Flutter, Dart, Go, and Firebase". As the head of Flutter he would be directly underneath her in the corporate hierarchy.

While I don't think mentioning her by name was necessary (she's just an example of the culture of bad middle management he's calling out), I do think highlighting her race as a meta-criticism does neither the OP nor Banks herself any favors.

My rule of thumb: unless given an obvious reason not to, assume good faith on the part of individuals.

Pretending racial disparities doesn't exist (particularly in tech) doesn't do any favors either.

Acting like race determines everything isn't exactly the healthiest strategy either.

Ultimately we're discussing assuming someone is a racist because they said something negative about a person of a different race. That assumption is also a racial stereotype.

No, there's two levels to this.

The dickishness/meanness of singling someone out by name in a public article on the Internet, which is what the comment here was primarily about.

And then the second level, which the commenter deliberately downplayed as a minor second point (but people here jumped on it...) that said person is a minority, so it makes one extra-suspicious about motives.

So I'm not sure where you got this "acting like race is about everything" point, because that wasn't in the comment.

Let’s just never criticize anyone who isn’t white, and treat them like children. Racism is solved!

What an amazing argument! So clever! You really got me there!

Yes, they really did get you there. Things can be about things other than race, though you wouldn't be able to tell based on this comment thread.

It's pretty unusual to publically throw someone under the bus by name like this in a professional name.

Given it's an unusual situation, people are reflecting on what makes this allegedly incompetent VP different from other incompetent VPs who aren't called out like this?

I'm not pretending anything like that. I assume good faith on the part of individuals (intentional word choice), because individuals are not systems or institutions and they really do tend to be decent and well-intentioned.

Do you mean racial disparities in hiring or in performance?

Throwaway didn't claim bad faith necessarily, but just pointed out an important variable.

It's good to have good faith, but it's also good to understand that good faith individuals also suffer from blindspots and unconscious biases.

Hypothetically if there is a set of leaders, directors, and VPs, that all seem equally incompetent, but you call out only one, what might be the reason for it? It could be random. It could be because they were this person's actual direct manager. It coudl be because they're genuinely the one that are the most incompetent of the lot. But it could also be that they're the one perceived to be the most incompetent of the lot. Why? Does them being a woman or black factor into it? Who knows. Not even OP might.

It's not helpful to jump to racism at a moment's notice. It's not helpful to use race as a shield from criticism. But it's also not helpful to pretend that racism doesn't exist, even unconsciously within folks that would otherwise believe they don't have a prejudiced bone in their body.

In conclusion, people shouldn't ACCUSE, and other people shouldn't get DEFENSIVE. It's OK to discuss. I thought Throwaway did a decent job of not accusing. Many responses got too defensive tho.

Nah, it’s race baiting bullshit, and more racist than the racism it claims to be calling out.

I agree with you that some reactions were a bit strong.

But I reject that "pretending racism doesn't exist" is a good description of objections like mine above.

In my view it's just as fair to say that taking your position means pretending that racism exists in all interactions between people of different races, and must be contended with before other matters.

Unconscious racism is a thing, yet I question the utility of bringing it up when you have no actual evidence that OP is affected by unconscious racism. He might just hate women too, right? Can't rule that out.

A measured response, thank you for laying it out so nicely.

Aside from, but including, this instance, I commend anyone who calls out their manager for toxic behaviour and outright being bad at their job, as long as like any criticism it leaves a person room to take the feedback and change in some measurable way; even better if the person levying the criticism left of their own accord and has a mountain of career capital to stand on while doing so.

People in positions of power, particularly those in-charge of others, should be taking it on a responsibility and duty; like any other person, sometimes they do a shit job, and I think managers (unless they've committed sexual assault or something) often get exempted from criticism, while any failures ironically tend to be shoveled onto individuals as replaceable units. How many people out there have managers that end being directly responsible for burning them down and out, causing problems in their family lives, and otherwise cultivating an environment that makes the task of getting work done all but impossible?

> series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level

Isn't that exactly the job of an org executive? To hire and align competent senior leadership ?

I don't think he is criticizing her in particular as much as the archetype that she represents. She is a person who has never had a coding job & spent her early career quite far from the people who write code. I can't for the life of me figure out why you would put someone like that in charge of google-dev relations. That's a premier-IC-turned-leader position if I've ever seen one.

No wonder she doesn't have a strategy. That's a terrible match for a hire.

> I can't for the life of me figure out why you would put someone like that in charge of google-dev relations.

One possibility is that the person who put her in that position has an incentive for Flutter/Dart to fail.

They just don't care.

Btw, it's very funny to see projects, which were predestined to fail, because they send their shittiest, and somehow they became better, and slowly more important than the executives star projects. There are meetings in such cases (I was part of such projects and meetings, several times), after almost everybody should be fired immediately, if you want anything good for the company. But of course, most of the employees of large, and old companies don't care anymore about products, or their respective companies.

> They just don't care.

This seems likely. Google makes 90% or some very high percent of their money from ads. I doubt there is any focus on on comparatively small side projects

I find it fascinating how you speak with so much authority. I know Jeanine Banks and I've been really upset with all the "diversity hire" nonsense coming from many of you who cannot hold a candle next to her. For your information she had been programmingor since high school and was hired into a government agency as a high school programmer-intern. That internship was her introduction into the worlf of technology. She has been an executive at GE and Amazon. Let's take alook at your resume and see if you can get into the rooms that Jeanine has been in. The condescension from many of you and particularly Ian's hit piece has been a disappointment to see.

> hold a candle next to, programmingor, worlf, alook, has been

I dare say we’ve all been in some rooms we didn’t really deserve to be in, wouldn’t you?

> Also I am almost never the person to bring this kind of thing up but ... there aren't a lot of other black women in leadership at Google. Makes this targeted attack feel worse.

Unless I misunderstood the author she was his manager. It is not like he chose some random "black woman in leadership at Google" to attack.

But then, why point at "her department" when they are both in it ? My read is she's not in author's direct hierarchy line.

The author has worked the last 9 years on Flutter. Banks is the VP of "Developer X", which is the department that "owns" Flutter.

Your read is incorrect.

She was a few levels up, but in his management chain.

Seems more reasonable to me to focus on the head of the division since she has ultimate authority over it. Any incompetent people below her in the org structure are her responsibility. If they’re so bad, why didn’t she realize that and remove them? If you don’t ever want to be criticized then you shouldn’t seek out top management positions. He was also very critical of Sundar, is that also wrong because it could hurt his feelings? As for why he felt the need to air his dirty laundry like this, he must feel extremely aggrieved.

Which race would have made the "targeted attack" better?

I had the same reaction. I'm ex-Google, but never worked in that org or heard of her ever but it seemed in profound bad taste (or just mean?) to me to be pinpointing people by name like that. I'm not sure what it accomplishes, unless there is a vendetta at work here?

Also seemed out of tone with the rest of the article, which I agreed with the substance of and enjoyed reading.

Why is there a presumed intent to "accomplish" anything? It's a blog post.

Haha! I've never heard anyone say "blog posts are pointless" out loud but it's true

Calling her out by name felt a bit harsh within the context of the post. Sure, call out Sundar as he's a public figure, but this lady, never heard of her, never seen her.

He could have made the point by writing "I had this terrible boss who had no idea about anything and...", her name is irrelevant to demonstrate the issue of decline at Google.

Maybe it was too much, but one counterpoint: if horrible managers never get called out how are you supposed to know to avoid them / how will they face consequences?

I understand authors frustration, I've experienced the same in the past but could not voice this beyond just some close friends and coworkers (who knew it already anyway), for fear of repercussions. I've since left but of course this person remains, and from what I hear is still as bad.

Outsiders might join that organization unaware of this. Others working with those teams might not know this and can get burned by it.

Was this particular call out justified? I don't know. But I don't think it is inherently bad.

I think the right/ethical move is to identify your organization (ie Flutter) and not name anyone specifically.

I agree completely with the article, but naming someone publicly makes the author seem like they are living in a bubble. Ie in their world the head of their org is a public figure, but hardly anyone knows what Flutter is let alone the org structure.

Why would the author single out Flutter if their critique is broader?

It's not a monolith organization. Google re-structured as a conglomerate (Alphabet). They're critiquing culture/values.

Further, if they were to single out Flutter, wouldn't the target be evident?

It is the right thing to do. Flutter team losing someone like Hixie is a big loss to everyone. It is very much possible Tim also left Flutter because of her. This terrible manager has nothing to contribute compared to that. I hope other googlers speak up.

> It is very much possible Tim also left Flutter because of her.

If not her, then likely someone she managed: https://twitter.com/timsneath/status/1727192477264974273

As a person of color who is also disabled, I find bringing race into the discussion to be reductionist. It reduces the individual to the skin color, which is just as bad as what you accuse others of doing. People shouldn’t be judged based on whether there are enough black women at Google.

> there aren't a lot of other white men in leadership at Google. Makes this targeted attack feel worse.

Reverse racism is just racism.

>Also I am almost never the person to bring this kind of thing up but

I find that hard to believe.

And this is why it's getting incredibly difficult to have open honest discussions. It has to be about somebody's identity credentials somewhere. So tired of this nonsense.

It sounds like the generic complaints of everyone who doesn't like their manager ever and frankly I would have thought twice before attaching my name to a broadside that attacks a former manager by name. But hey, what do I know, I never worked at Google.

Even in my “I quit Google” post I was careful to make it impossible for an outsider to determine who I was complaining about, even scrubbing my team info from LinkedIn.

But I think 18 years at Google means the author has plenty of “fuck you” money.

You are probably right; I just don't really see what's to be gained by going public with it considering the complaints are pretty inside-baseball and not that interesting to outsiders (I mean, hard to imagine someone thinking "I'm not going to deal with Google because so-and-so's subordinates say they don't understand her strategy").

I will certainly not use Dart if a person in charge of its direction doesn't know what they're doing even at a basic level. I can't just blindly hope her team does what's best and doesn't listen to her.

It'd be hard to find an org where you couldn't find someone to make similar complaints.

I'm in one. This is a pretty specific dressing down from a senior engineer. It's disturbing, and consistent with Google's output

I found myself asking the same questions after reading the post.

You might consider reading the followup post: https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1700627532&count=1

It suggests that, in spite of his problems with management, the author remains bullish about Flutter (and likely Dart).

The Dart team certainly has vision!

The VP above might not, but who cares...

It’s just venting. A person in the author’s position must feel that the mediocre management robbed them of a core part of their identity.

You are implying that every manager is competent and every criticism from a subordinate is baseless.

Not at all. This is a false dichotomy

> I mean, hard to imagine someone thinking "I'm not going to deal with Google because so-and-so's subordinates say they don't understand her strategy"

I'm not quite there, but as a heavy Firebase user who generally loves the product but who has been incredibly frustrated with a lot of the (lack of) direction of new features over the past 4 years or so, reading this post made me think "Ohhh, now it makes sense."

That is, there are basic, presumably easy-to-implement, features that have languished for years in Firebase. Part of me has wanted to go interview with Firebase just so I can get hired to fix some obvious missing feature. Now, granted, it's obviously impossible to pin this directly on this manager, and this is also a Google-wide problem, but I think the author's point is that a lot of this "directionless-ness" is a result of poor middle management.

Once I got inside Google it wasn’t long until I had the “Aha moment” and understood why Google’s new products are in turmoil.

Oh well. Maybe it's about time incompetent people were named and shamed, maybe that would put a stop to failing upwards for people who really shouldn't be there.

It's doubtful.

Once it becomes acceptable I expect the correlation between people naming and shaming and actual poor performance/bad behaviour to drop drastically.

Proper workers aren't as good at playing politics as those who just focus on politics.

there would at least be some data, probably noisy, gamed, a bad proxy for this signal, but much better than the current empty void littered with courtesy linkedin endorsements

Sign up for Glassdoor, and you will find by-name denunciations of people who work at any company you care to interview for.

> But I think 18 years at Google means the author has plenty of “fuck you” money.

And the balls! Dunno whether I read your generic "why I quit Google" essay, but author's post was the first that I liked due to his willingness to throw punches.

Keeping quiet about perceived problems is exactly the kind of toxic political lack of transparency that Ian is calling out here.

How much is it really doing if you’re making the criticism after you left?

Infinitely more than never talking about it, at the very least. It definitely will empower others to talk about it by validating their perceptions and concerns.

I would guess he's been advocating for this for years before he left.

While I'd never do that either, I did find it refreshing to read from someone else. It certainly makes this post unique amongst the many "I left Google" diary entries.

Frankly the fact he was willing to include that paragraph probably indicates that there's a few thousand more paragraphs he resisted including...

A 18-year veteran like OP shouldn't be complaining about their manager's lack of vision ; they should have realised by now that it's also their job to enact the vision. He was probably paid too much to behave as a passenger.

What is a problem with being an IC?

Nothing wrong with being an IC. A senior IC role includes some responsibility for this sort of thing, that's most of what makes it senior...

Who exactly at Google isn't a passenger? Jeff Dean? There aren't many pilots there.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Hixie has enough vision and is loved by everyone. It's not his job to manage a clueless manager.

Any vision covering firebase, flutter, dart and go, etc. doesn't make sense.

It would take close to a decade to align these products.

My impression is that this is a place to hang these products on the org-tree. IMO the individual teams appear to have LOTS of vision!

The VP in question is unnecessary (IMO).

I would never name names but I don’t have 18 years of Google equity. I suspect he didn’t have any non-disparagement clauses to sign.

Nothing kills motivation more than bad management, I can totally feel his pain.

In saying that, I don't think public, targeted statements like this are ever the right thing to do. She's just a person, doing a job.

You know people can be evil or at the least they can be bad people. Do you think this person is bad or good? My point is that when you say something like "She's just a person, doing a job." you're defending the bad rather than calling it out.

I don't know her (nor do I presume to know her), but if I take your definition of "bad" as in "morally bad" (you used it in the context of evil), that feels pretty presumptuous, and then fairly attacking to assume the commenter is "defending the bad". There are so many people who end up half-assing their jobs in various ways, I think it's a pretty slippery slope to start calling those people "bad". They may be bad at their job, but I wouldn't call them bad people.

I also don't have enough information to say she's "not" a bad person, but with the information given, I don't see anything that would indicate she is one.

This is exactly my point. There is no way the public has information about whether the person is bad or good, just 1 disgruntled employee's impression of their job performance.

There's more to life and a person than a job. That's all. Even the worst managers I've had have been good people. They're good dads and mums, enjoy hiking and camping.

Public statements like this one are easy to make, impossible to verify or challenge, and only cause hurt

What good does that do when they ruin a workplace? If I were bad at my job, it's not like I wouldn't get fired because I'm just such a great person outside of the workplace...

Since private complaints routed through internal channels don't generally work either, this is a good thing he has done.

And no, public statements can make you a public target. These are not easy to make.

> just 1 disgruntled employee's impression of their job performance.

And what’s wrong with that, if that’s their honest and informed impression?

I guess it depends on how you view work. I can dislike someone's work as a colleague, but like them as a person. And vice versa. Work is just work - it's not our entire life. And someone being bad at a job (even if we accept that this person is truly intrinsically incompetent, and not just a byproduct of a dysfunctional org, as is often the case) doesn't automatically mean, to me, that they have some personal moral failing or personality flaw.

So, in that vein, I think I'd hesitate to publicly embarrass someone merely for being bad at a job, since that crosses over to affecting their personal life. If someone asked me about that person in a professional context (to make a hiring decision, for example), I'd be frank about their weaknesses. But I don't think the whole world has to know about it.

> I don't think public, targeted statements like this are ever the right thing to do.

As a previous believer in this, I now strongly disagree. (even if I am too chicken to do it myself)

Tech nerds are usually nice and non-confrontational people. They get exploited to high heaven by those who are effective at navigating low-visibility & grey-area political spaces. When an org, leader, employee or associate taints every single private avenue for criticism, you are left without much recourse.

People quit bad managers. But bad managers are often amazing as appearing amazing. As long as management has zero accountability within the org structure, sub-optimal signals like these must do.

> Those who make private criticism impossible will make public tirades inevitable

- John F. Kennedy reincarnated in 2023

The consequences of naming someone in such a manner, in an article that makes its rounds on the Internet, can be actually quite dire. Public harassment, etc. There are some pretty unhinged people out there, and in particular some rather ugly people who in particular get especially unhinged on the topic of women in tech at Google, etc.

I think it's in very bad taste in this case.

And weirdly superfluous to the point he was trying to make. Did anyone really need the name of someone with whom he has an axe to grind in order to believe the larger point about Google's organizational ossification?

Do you honestly believe that somebody is going to be harassed by the public or harassed in public or harassed in private because somebody on a niche blogs wrote that they were a bad boss? Or are you inventing a false scenario to argue against some writing you consider to be in bad taste?

This wasn't a twitter tirade. This was on his niche blog post about someone's personal experience and towards someone who was making 10s of millions. Big difference.

With her budget, just her org is effectively bigger than the biggest tech company in most countries of the world. At that point upper leadership is not allowed to differentiate between private and public life. Public criticism is private criticism and vice-versa. It's likely a testament to her achievements that she has earned an enviable? level of success that makes public criticism acceptable.

> in particular some rather ugly people who in particular get especially unhinged on the topic of women in tech at Google, etc.

That being said I do agree with your point. With those risks in mind, I still think it should be socially permissible to make this kind of post.

> I think it's in very bad taste in this case.

I thought it was done as well as one could. I know the west coast prides itself for its 'niceness', but in a lot of parts of USA, plain expression of dislike is considered in better taste than the kind of passive aggressiveness that would result from softening the poster's language. It was meant to be a targeted question at her competence. Just because she is one of many incompetent people at the helm at Google, doesn't invalidate the poster's experience.

The anecdotal optics might be bad. But I for one rely on Occam's razor before jumping to conclusions about racial/gender angles in everything.

the solution is to report it to boss' boss or quit. calling someone out like this publicly is beyond bad taste

I don't really see how naming the specific individual improved the argument, unless there is true malfeasance, like sexual harassment, I don't think it's ethical to publicly name-and-shame somebody for the crime of being bad at their job.

LOTS of people are bad at their job.

She probably makes $10M a year, don’t worry about it.

Doing so head-on solves the problem faster. Talking directly to someone or about the problem as it is has felt to me like people can understand and act quicker. Less malcontent is felt by those affected by such a person's incompetence.

Capturing the subtleties in such a black/white call-out usually is lost though to the reader/listener. It also doesn't lend to this to do this so publically, for the entire internet.

It doesn’t really matter as the poster is in the “clueless” cohort of the company and she’s a sociopath. He thinks that the company exists to do whatever he said it was earlier when in fact the sociopaths running it at that time just said that to attract people that can do work to make them rich.

He thinks she is bad at her job and it’s clear she’s not. She know precisely how to move people around to take blame for failures while staying clean and clear to brag about the wins. To the clueless she might look dumb but she’s not at all. She knows how to secure her millions in comp per year and retire early. She’s very smart.

To be fair he seems to be waking up to the fact the sociopaths are in it for themselves, 18 years later.

> He thinks she is bad at her job and it’s clear she’s not.

'At her job' - her job is improving the department.

> She knows how to secure her millions in comp per year and retire early. She’s very smart.

If I had the background, connections and privileges of these several MBA types, I could also do that. But I couldnt perhaps be a great engineer. Therefore I wouldn't share your appreciation of sociopathy, and I believe many people are of similar opinion.

> I don't really see how naming the specific individual improved the argument

I disagree. Good articles should make specific propositions about specific exemplars. The alternative is to make generalities that are hard to falsify.

If she doesn’t want to be publicly shamed for being bad at her job she could always try to be good at it.

She probably is trying to be good at it.

She’s failing, hence the call out. You don’t get to quietly fail when you’re raking in millions dictating the work lives of thousands of people.

She's presumably already trying to do a good job. Saying "try to a good job" isn't helpful feedback and isn't assuming good intent.

For a rank and file employee or a line manager, I'd agree with you.

But this is a Director at Google. She has the power to command change and her actions affect 100s of people directly inside Google and likely many thousands using the products of teams under her. They likely draw multi million dollar total comp.

I very much welcome them to be publicly called out on their BS.

I noticed that and it's a very strong point.

Taking such a strong stance is not something would so light-heartedly, i really wonder what went on to drive this person to write such harsh words about her.

Considering the amount of people the author has likely seen over 18 years and how many of them he could have complained about... It must not be a chance it's her specifically.

There's no greater source of professional resentment than suffering under a manager who's incompetent and a narcissist (my summary of his blurb). After 18 years at Google he probably feels safe burning that bridge.

But why? I could legitimately IMO rag on a handful of former managers who I think mostly meant well but I’m not going to do it in a blog post.

> But why? I could legitimately IMO rag on a handful of former managers who I think mostly meant well but I’m not going to do it in a blog post.

Maybe he doesn't think that she mostly meant well?

But you could.

Well that is because you live your life from a place of fear. Not everyone is like that.

It’s not fear. I just don’t really believe in opening up scabs.

Good for you. It might save someone from taking a job under what appears to be an awful manager though

After 18 years at Google he's likely at a stage in his life where he's at f-you money in his bank account.

If he cares more about the company culture than being rehired by the people that disagree with his outlook, why not let it fly? If it instigates a culture change, he wins at the cost of a professional bridge he doesn't value anyway.

One great way to lose the f-you money in your bank account is to get involved in a harassment or slander lawsuit because of some offhand things you said that got pasted all over the interwebs.

I'm not saying that will happen here, but if I were writing this blog post I would have deliberately avoided specifics like this because of that, in part.

It's one thing to legitimately trash Sundar Pichai; another to name some middle-level manager like that.

Since when is a VP middle-level management ?

Pretty much half the people who work at any given bank have some sort of "VP" title. "Middle-level" would be overestimating the standing of many with that title.

What a truly arbitrary comment. This is a conversation that is clearly about Google. What possible value did you think you added with what you wrote here.

Bad example, I guess.

You wrote Since when is a VP middle-level management ? in reply to the parent commenter's observation It's one thing to legitimately trash Sundar Pichai; another to name some middle-level manager like that. A VP is very much middle-level management.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_title#Middle_managem...

(a quick look at a Google org chart makes it look like, well, VPs are middle management there too)

I'm not sure what org chart you looked at, but VP's make up less than 0.5% of the company.

To be clear, since I guess we're really drilling down on this: VP denotes senior management at Google? So Hixie's blog post wasn't really dumping on a random middle manager as cmdrporcupine (an ex-Googler, I think) suggested, which was the point of all this, but rather picking on a potential C-suite executive or something?

Yes, VP is senior management at Google. Statistically, middle management is L6 or L7 manager. VP is at least L10.

It's not quite picking on a potential c-suite executive, but it's close. She's two steps away from c-suite, in a company of >180k people.

Thanks for the context. That’s a lot of layers of management you’ve got there.

Zero risk of that. Libel requires proof, and having this go to court would require airing that proof in open court. If this is truthful at all and it only casts shade on one director, and retaliatory suits would be more harmful to the company and illuminating of internal affairs than this blog post. Any competent HR would much rather mediate in private.

The point is, you weren't the person who wrote this. And I'm glad someone did. We need a little more scrutiny on how given people run industry leading ships aground despite making more in a year than some people make their entire lives.

People who never had the misfortune to work with a truly toxic manager or co-worker are often oblivious to the damage they can cause. I'm speaking of psychological damage, burn out, anxiety, stress, depression, health problems. Naming their abuser can be helpful to people who had to endure such a thing.

He grew up in Europe, which may have given him different sensibilities.

What is that supposed to mean?

As an European who worked in both North Americans and European companies I can attest European business communication is much more direct and less averse to confrontations.

Having said that, I'm not sure we can assign this difference in mentality to author's decision to name the VP (which I personally find valiant, but probably short-sighted).

I really like that he calls her and pichai out. They’re both undeserving fat cats. If you’re going to be a fat cat, you should know you’re a fat cat. Otherwise, you’ll think you deserve even more.

And her summary is literally a list of corporate buzzwords

This has been happening at every middle sized and up tech company over the last couple of decades. Woke leadership brings in diverse but incompetent management that kills morale, productivity and any sense of purpose in the company.

I have come to the opinion that being an executive at any sufficiently large company revolves around building a cult of personality. Any contribution they make would be nearly impossible to compare against what a possible replacement candidate would make. This might be a fair or unfair characterization -- it might even be both! Building a personal brand by being a cheerleader for your company/organization, maintaining the image that you have everything figured out and everything is under control, while taking credit for building the world class team underneath you is essential.

I don't think that's quite accurate.

There are genuinely amazing, highly respected executives in some (most?) tech companies.

I do agree though that the public facing image of a lot of them is a lot of hype. A lot of the big companies want to build an aura of infallible leader extraordinaire's for their management team.

I didn’t say that they weren’t talented or deserving people. But at some point, managing perception is essential to surviving and excelling. There are plenty of geniuses that fail to get their due. The hagiography (especially on this site) is particularly strong and often paints these people as larger than life. Based on the downvotes of my opinion, I seem to have struck a nerve.

The only thing I know her from is I/O, where she kicks off/MCs the dev keynotes. Her I/O bio says "VP and GM of Developer X" and "Head of Developer Relations", but I have no idea if "Developer X" is developer experience, or a reference to the old X skunkworks, or something else entirely.

EDIT: Dug a little more and it's the group formerly known as Developer Product. So Firebase, etc. makes sense. Successor to Jason Titus.

Would be interesting in data. Is this a Jeanine thing or a Google culture thing. Probably a Google culture thing.

His critique of his manager doesn’t paint him in the most positive light either. The fact that she seems to articulate the strategy but he doesn’t understand it is something I’ve seen on a few occasions where people effectively refuse to acknowledge the strategy because they disagree with some aspect of it.

His lack of specificity on almost all counts but her name also makes me question his judgment.

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