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I quit your company because...

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE, INDIA: Quitting a job was never so fanciful. Posting those unconcealed feelings online sounds a departure from the once hush-hush resignations and clandestine negotiations. But that's how it is. Changing times.

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A Google ex-employee James Whittaker in his blog writes: "The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus."

Now, it is Goldman Sachs director Greg Smith, who quit after publishing an open letter in the New York Times that called the investment firm a "toxic and destructive" place. In the letter titled "Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs," Smith says the central reason for leaving as "in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money."

James Whittaker, who worked as developer director at Google+ is now with Microsoft, goes on to add that under Eric Schmidt, ads were always in the background. Google was run like an innovation factory, empowering employees to be entrepreneurial through founder’s awards, peer bonuses and 20% time.

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"Technically I suppose Google has always been an advertising company, but for the better part of the last three years, it didn’t feel like one. Google was an ad company only in the sense that a good TV show is an ad company: having great content attracts advertisers."

Emphasising Google's efforts to snub Facebook, he says one place where the Google innovation machine faltered and one place mattered a lot was competing with Facebook and that resulted in a couple of antisocial dogs like Google Wave and Google Buzz.

"Larry Page himself assumed command to right this wrong. Social became state-owned, a corporate mandate called Google+. It was an ominous name invoking the feeling that Google alone wasn’t enough. Search had to be social."

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Stating that the Google's days of hiring smart people and empowering them to invent the future was gone, he says: "Suddenly, 20% meant half-assed. Google Labs was shut down. App Engine fees were raised."

"The old Google made a fortune on ads because they had good content. It was like TV used to be: make the best show and you get the most ad revenue from commercials. The new Google seems more focused on the commercials themselves.

"Perhaps Google is right. Perhaps the future lies in learning as much about people’s personal lives as possible. Perhaps if they offer an ad for a divorce lawyer because I am writing an email about my 14 year old son breaking up with his girlfriend I’ll appreciate that ad enough to end my own marriage. Or perhaps I’ll figure all this stuff out on my own," Whittaker signs off.



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