Former googler says Google culture has gone from ‘heaven’ to ‘pretty gloomy’

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Former Google employee Claire Stapleton has spoken out against the company, saying her perspective on the tech giant has soured over the 12 years she’s worked there. During a New York Times First Person Podcast, Claire Stapleton said she was hired to help manage the company’s corporate image, both internally and in the media. She joined Google in 2007, but she moved to the company’s New York office in 2012. She said Google was like a “heaven” when she started working for the company. However, over the years she has become disillusioned with the company, particularly after moving to the company’s New York office. Stapleton said Google treated its contractors like “second-class citizens.”

Later in 2018, Stapleton helped organize a protest in 2018, walking away from jobs with approximately 20,000 Google workers in response to the company’s handling of sexual harassment allegations. He believed the strike would help Google reposition itself in the right direction. But shortly thereafter there was a restructuring of his role in the company which led to her exit.

Now, nearly four years later, Stapleton sees Google’s culture as “pretty grim,” especially since the company laid off about 12,000 employees in February. He sees the layoffs as a “power grab” and “the opposite of what Larry and Sergey intended for the company,” referring to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. He stated that Page and Brin had a grand vision, something akin to “curing death.”

Google recently conducted mass layoffs. The company has removed 12,000 employees worldwide. The search giant isn’t the only corporate tech sector to have removed its workforce. Amazon also cut 18,000 employees earlier this year. Meta fired 11,000 employees at the end of last year, and Twitter fired more than 50% of all its employees.

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