You’re right, startup people have a drive to build great things and they burn the midnight oil and they get divorced during the development of the original iPhone, etc.

But the people who keep the lights on at most companies especially big ones like Google are a sea of average, steady, stable employees who do their tasks and not much else, go home at 5 or maybe earlier and have no interest in burning themselves out so that the CEO can have a second private jet.

And you don’t want to run your company on all A-players and 10x developers because once the thing is built they’ll get bored and move on to the next thing, or they’ll hit a mental breakdown and rage quit because they’re the bulb burning brightest.

Those C-players will just keep clocking in, they won’t be poached by more attractive places to work, they won’t be difficult to cover for when they go on leave, and they won’t write code that goes over the head of other C-players.

Technically, a developer at a public company should work harder to boost the stock price because they’re getting shares as compensation. But at the same time, making 5% more in stock value isn’t worth working 50% harder.

I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with the culture at Google. People who wish Google would be exciting again like Schmidt are just grasping at nostalgia. Boring business may be boring but boring business is excellent business.