Michael had a bad time, for reasons that most people believe were due to his own impatience, and now he likes to talk about Google as if his situation is the norm. It's not.
No one minds if Michael talks about his own bad experiences at Google. People just get upset when he pretends his experience is representative of Google as a whole.
My experiences may not be representative. My observations are. I've met countless people who've been screwed over by its anachronistic closed-allocation regime.
Some people have good experiences, some don't, and for 95+ percent of the "don't" category, it's because Google screws the pooch when it comes to people management.
I've never met a Googler who (a) got smacked by its antiquated HR system, and (b) actually deserved it. There probably is one or two out there-- it's a Poisson distribution with parameter around 2.5-- but I've never met one. Most of Google's problem employees (I've been personally attacked by a few) seem to do just fine.
Most companies start-off half-decent and sell off their culture to hire executives, which usually involves zero-sum autonomy transfers and globally undesirable cultural changes.
Usually, if this is going to happen, it happens early in the startup phase (~50 employees) but Google managed to hold it off for several years-- which is admirable-- but eventually hired some evil execs who did the culture in.
I feel like the hiring of executives is where most companies lose their culture. Bringing in a semi-retired burnout with a sense of entitlement, and giving him all the keys, turns out to be a bad move.
