Google Shakes Up Its 'TGIF'and Ends Its Culture of Openness
The famous free-for-alls had epitomized the companys egalitarian ethos, a place where employees and leaders could talk freely about nearly anything.
More recently, however, the biweekly meeting had become fraught as it increasingly reflected Googles tensions as opposed to its aspirations.In 2020, he declared, the meetings would be limited to once a month, and they would be more constrained affairs, sticking to product and business strategy.
He also noted that while many want to hear about product launches and business strategies, some attend to hear answers on other topics. It seems obvious he was referring to recent moments when aggrieved employees registered objections to Googles policies and misstepson developing a search engine for China, bestowing millions of dollars to executives charged with sexual misconduct, or hiring a former Homeland Security apparatchik.
Facebook recently had its own issues with its weekly all-hands, where Mark Zuckerberg fields questions from his own far-flung workforce. Zuckerberg not only acknowledged the authenticity of the leak but, on very little notice, decided to publicly live-stream the next weeks all-hands.
The practice began when Google was relatively tiny, as a relaxed sessionbeer was served!where cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin took queries, no matter how challenging, from anyone who cared to ask.
The company even invented an app that allowed employees to rank potential questions, so pressing ones would get precedence.
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