'Morale is at an all-time low': Ex-Googler writes scathing letter slamming layoffs and 'eroded' culture

• A recently-departed Googler published a scathing letter about the company.
• He accused Google of destroying transparency between executives and staff.

An ex-Google employee has published a highly critical letter attacking the firm's "eroded" culture and accusing CEO Sundar Pichai of lacking "visionary leadership."

Ian Hickson, who worked for Google for 18 of its 25 years, said he resigned from the company this month.

Posting on his blog, Hickson said he was "very lucky" to have experienced the early days of the company, where executives were candid with staff and ambitious experimentation was encouraged — but said the search giant's culture had since "deteriorated."

"Transparency evaporated," he wrote. "Where previously I would eagerly attend every company-wide meeting to learn what was happening, I found myself now able to predict the answers executives would give word for word. Today, I don't know anyone at Google who could explain what Google's vision is. Morale is at an all-time low.

"If you talk to therapists in the bay area, they will tell you all their Google clients are unhappy with Google."

Hickson said he spent his last nine years at Google working on Flutter, a platform for developing apps.

To be sure, Google employs more than 100,000 staffers, and Hickson's complaints may simply reflect his own view.

But his letter is being shared privately and publicly on social media among current and former Googlers, some of whom agree with its sentiments. And he is far from the first employee who has criticized the company's increasing bureaucracy since founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped away.

Hickson is unusually candid, however, especially in his remarks on CEO Sundar Pichai.

"Much of these problems with Google today stem from a lack of visionary leadership from Sundar Pichai, and his clear lack of interest in maintaining the cultural norms of early Google," Hickson continued. "A symptom of this is the spreading contingent of inept middle management.

"Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision," he wrote.

One of the most interesting parts of the letter criticizes the company's "short-sighted" layoffs. Google announced in January that it would cut 12,000 employees in an effort to reduce costs. Since then it has been making smaller, quieter cuts across the company, to the point employees are now tracking layoffs in an internal document, Business Insider reported.

Hickson says these layoffs have "insidious" effects on the culture that can cause employees to "dramatically dial back any risk-taking."

"I see all of this at Google now," wrote Hickson. "The lack of trust in management is reflected by management no longer showing trust in the employees either, in the form of inane corporate policies."

BI has previously reported tension between the rank-and-file and managers at Google over, for example, practices around labelling employees as low performers.

Hickson suggests there should be efforts to move power "from the CFO's office back to someone with a clear long-term vision for how to use Google's extensive resources to deliver value to users."

As for whether Google's culture can be salvaged, Hickson thinks it can, but says the "clock is ticking."

"The deterioration of Google's culture will eventually become irreversible, because the kinds of people whom you need to act as moral compass are the same kinds of people who don't join an organisation without a moral compass."

BI approached Google and Hickson for comment.

Are you a current or former Googler with more to share? You can reach Hugh via encrypted messaging apps Signal/Telegram (+1 628-228-1836) or email at hlangley@businessinsider.com.