Understanding the dynamics is great, and we can learn from that, and apply it to other situations.
As for who to blame for something a company does, shouldn't outsiders blame the entire company? That's our interface, and also how we can hold the company accountable for its collective behavior.
It's also a defense against scapegoating: it wasn't just one person who made a unilateral decision, and everyone else -- up to and including the board, as well as down the tree, to those who knew and could walk and/or whistleblow -- was totally powerless. The company as an entity is responsible, and a lot of individuals were key or complicit.
No, I firmly believe that this level of indirection over-diffuses responsibility in a way that enables the malfeseance we're observing.
It's a social dark pattern that I'm keen to identify and disrupt.
I had the unfortunate experience of running a startup with a couple of guys from a name brand fintech. They absolutely demolished the company before we got our first sale.
I couldn’t quite work out if these guys learned their mendacious trade from $bigcorp or if $bigcorps simply attract these kind of people.
My sense is that it’s a bit from both columns - I think that huge, profit driven megacorps, in general, are bad for society, in part because corporate culture itself is rapacious, and in part because they deliver enormous power into the hands of incredibly selfish people.
The company should be held responsible for bad actions AND so should the individuals.
Which... is not a claim I'd agree with without extremely convincing evidence.
It implies that getting rid of That Fucking Guy is a necessary but likely insufficient condition for improving things.
Orgs that have been dysfunctional for a long time tend to have very complex dysfunctions, but there are still ways to fix these orgs, and it often starts by removing poor leadership from their posts.
Does it immediately make everything sunshine and lollipops? Of course not, but removing leadership that's actively working to counter your goals is still a necessary step towards the greater goal.
I think there are often two camps when it comes to organizational dynamics: "Team Incentives" (everything is about org structure and incentives) vs. "Team Great Person" (everything is about a small set of specific high-level people)
The reality is often somewhere in between. IMO "Team Incentives" often errs too much in that belief - especially because dysfunctional incentives are often downstream from a surprisingly small number of people.
I'm not sure that scapegoating makes the characterization of the article any better.
> atleast this guy has given us good information and context to understand Googles decline.
The style of the article gives good reason to think that the context & information is selectively provided.
> And of course, it's more entertaining when people are called out.
Yup.
Maybe we just need to be better at navigating who _somebody_ is, organizations can only be so complex at the top.