I left Google a month ago. While my memory is still fresh, I’d like to reflect on my observations about Google’s culture and mindset. This list will be updated continuously.

20% project

Google encourages 20% side projects, though in reality this often means working 120% of your time. You can collaborate with anyone across the company, and everything is transparently accessible - code repositories, design documents, talks, team roadmaps - all searchable through an excellent internal tool. This open culture is a key driver behind Google’s tremendous contribution to the last 2 decade’s computer science progress. I deeply appreciate this unique environment.

“Don’t panic, we knew it, we can do better”

Google has rock-solid infrastructure and extremely dense talent. So whenever there’s pivotal competition, Google’s reaction follows a predictable pattern. This has happened repeatedly with recent LLM developments. When ChatGPT emerged, Googlers would say “we originally invented this technique and we have an internal chatbot developed.” When DeepSeek launched, the response was “we knew it - nothing DeepSeek discovered is new to us.” But here’s the thing: you’re now just following, never leading. I really miss the old days - Gmail completely blowing my mind with 1GB storage, lightning-fast search, and solid spam filtering. Chrome, a revolutionary browser that was way faster and safer than IE. Google Maps, I can navigate the world from my computer for the first time. Those were products that didn’t just compete - they redefined!

Infra

Google’s planet-scale infrastructure continues to amaze me - the rock-solid foundation they’ve developed enables engineers to effortlessly scale their services. Take LLM services: Google-hosted Gemini and Anthropic models consistently deliver faster response times at lower costs than their competitors.

Interestingly, you’ll always find at least two options inside Google, for most infra tool or service. The higher up the stack you go, the more choices multiply. I suspect this proliferation stems from having too many brilliant engineers who need projects for promotion.

But this emphasis on planet-scale solutions becomes a double-edged sword. Consider a simple scenario: externally, you can launch a mini LLM application in hours using open-source tools and cloud services. Inside Google? That same project transforms into an overengineered behemoth.