Do you think the failure was tactical failures or strategic failures? Other companies seem to bring new categories of business with success. Why could Microsoft launch a game platform and be successful but google couldn’t? Why is an e-commerce company leading cloud computing?
My best guess is culture. Google's perks went from a means to allow employees to work longer and harder to an entitlement that actually undermined productivity. It also appears they allowed internal activists to distract and delay the release of various tech–LLMs, for example, that would have given them a multi-year lead. Again, too many do-nothing marketers, PMs, DEI bureaucrats, TPMs, Directors and VPs, not enough actual builders. Maybe this is the blood letting Google needs to get it back into gear.
You can't just give people "stuff" to do without a clear direction.
You need strong leaders with vision and commitment. And if the leaders can't stomach the risk of failing hard, well, that's how you end up with Google of the past ~15 years.
