{"id":1730,"date":"2026-07-31T17:11:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T17:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1730"},"modified":"2026-07-31T17:11:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T17:11:19","slug":"galaxy-brain-behind-the-curtain-at-google","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1730","title":{"rendered":"Galaxy Brain: Behind the Curtain at Google"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Silicon Valley has long been a place of tech innovation and optimism. When Claire Stapleton moved there to work in communications at Google in 2007, she was bright eyed and optimistic about the company\u2019s mission. In those days, she describes the executives as acting like \u201cbenevolent kings.\u201d But over the course of the next decade, Google grew and changed. It arguably succeeded in its initial mission of organizing the world\u2019s information, and it has grown an enormously profitable ads business. But it\u2019s also had to face tough questions about data privacy and government contracts, and courts have declared parts of its business a monopoly. In this episode of Galaxy Brain<\/em>, Charlie Warzel talks to Stapleton about her journey at Google\u2014from the early days of ball pits and gourmet food to the growing disillusionment that eventually led to her leading an employee walkout in 2018, and leaving the following year.<\/p>\n

Read more This May Be Trump\u2019s Biggest Error in the Iran War<\/a><\/p>\n

The following is a transcript of the episode:<\/i><\/p>\n

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Claire Stapleton:<\/b> I do think that inevitably having so much money and power, it creates a form of brain rot. Like, I just don\u2019t think that you exist on the planet in a normal way at all. And I can\u2019t really account for how quickly the mask slipped with the tech CEOs who were seemingly so offended by Trump at the beginning, and now are on the MAGA train as hardcore as anyone else. But it\u2019s genuinely surprising, because they were much more interested in positioning themselves as sort of like benevolent kings of the universe before. And now, it\u2019s just\u2014the vibe has completely shifted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

[<\/b>Music<\/i><\/b>]<\/b><\/p>\n

C<\/b>harlie Warzel:<\/b> I\u2019m Charlie Warzel, and this is Galaxy Brain<\/i>, a show where today we\u2019re going to talk about what happened to Google. At the risk of sounding ancient, I still remember an internet before Google. Like a lot of people, I\u2019d been burned by plugging keywords into other old search engines and getting these weird, just barely relevant results. It\u2019s as if the computer didn\u2019t understand what I wanted.<\/p>\n

Before Google, there were all kinds of tactics that you had to use. It was almost this language that you had to speak to get what you wanted. And Google changed all of that. It felt, as the best technology does, like magic. And I probably don\u2019t need to outline what happened next. How Google dominated search, how it became an advertising giant, how it printed money, and became arguably the foundational online company of the 21st century.<\/p>\n

Their mission statement was to organize the world\u2019s information. And honestly, it\u2019s hard to disagree that they at least in part accomplished that goal\u2014Search, Maps, Gmail, Books, Photos. They branched into phones, into workplace software. They bought YouTube when it was still a fledgling video site. They became a behemoth, and they got so big and so rich that they started trying what they called \u201cmoonshot projects,\u201d like self-driving cars, drone delivery services, and trying to cure death.<\/p>\n

In some ways, the story of Google is the story of the commercial internet. Or maybe more specifically, it is the story of what we often refer to as Big Tech. Google famously started in a garage with just two people: Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The company built something ingenious with search, and it quickly developed this quirky, upbeat, benevolent California-company ideology, all built around a very specific credo. Don\u2019t be evil.<\/i> And then it grew. And grew.<\/p>\n

It had to adapt to the realities of having money and influence and real power. It had to make unpopular decisions, like partnering with the military or changing permissions on how it collected data on users. Its search dominance grew from this success story to a monopoly. It faced criticism. It became a target of the late-2010s tech clash. It got hauled in front of Congress, sued by the FTC.<\/p>\n

Claire Stapleton was there for this hinge point in Google\u2019s history. She joined the company in 2007, and she worked on a team that helped shape Google\u2019s image internally with its own employees. Over the next 12 years, she worked across the organization, in executive comms and at YouTube. She watched all this change happen, and eventually she grew frustrated by it.<\/p>\n

In 2018, she was one of the leaders and organizers of Google\u2019s Walk Out for Real Change. This was a landmark moment in this burgeoning tech-labor movement. Her involvement, she alleges, ultimately led to her having to leave the company in 2019. And so now Stapleton has written a memoir. It\u2019s titled, very fittingly, Don\u2019t Be Evil<\/i>, and it\u2019s about her time inside Google. I wanted to talk to her about Google\u2019s transformation.<\/p>\n

What happens after a tech company succeeds in its initial mission? And so, Claire Stapleton joins me now to talk about it all.<\/p>\n

Claire, welcome to Galaxy Brain<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Claire Stapleton: <\/b>Thank you so much for having me. This is a thrill.<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>So you joined Google in 2007, if I\u2019m right\u2014a time that for Google but also for the internet feels almost unrecognizable for today. So my first question here is: What was Google like when you joined?<\/p>\n

Stapleton:<\/b> Yeah, I think it\u2019s like such a time capsule in so many ways. And 2007 was like, there was this feverish rush to capture college talent in a way that they sort of never did again. They were doing large-scale college recruiting to just bring in people fresh into the workforce. It was hardly a start-up, but it still had this sort of fresh energy of, you know\u2014American innovation, and yet not yet corporate. It was not yet at all really considered to be sort of like some scary behemoth, or Should we be wondering about all the power and money that\u2019s sort of flowing into this company?<\/i> It was on the cover of Fortune<\/i> magazine\u2014\u201cbest place to work\u201d\u2014a couple of years running at that point. It just felt like: Wow, they not just, like, reinvented the corporation, but it was sort of this Willy Wonka, brand-new kind of model of a corporation.<\/p>\n

Certainly I\u2019m sure people were not totally bought into it, but as a young person entering the workforce\u2014and of course for the record, 2008, the recession would happen the next year. So it was sort of like this very limited window to come into this sort of tech boom feeling like the world was ours, I guess.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/b> No; I remember it. At the time there was this idea of like, my gosh, you go to work, and it\u2019s like beanbags and parties and like ping-pong tables. And that was the Silicon Valley vibe, the ethos overall. But there was this feeling\u2014like, the Willy Wonka thing really tracks for me. Because I was like, What goes on there? <\/i>Like, the internet happens in that building or in that series of buildings. Describe the atmosphere, the campus, the people, the free food, the optimism, all of that.<\/p>\n

Stapleton:<\/b> It was like this continuation of college. Which was really bizarre, because you were also sort of transitioning into the hierarchy of a fairly normal corporate environment, frankly. I mean, there were plenty of executives and some corp speak and all sorts of rules that governed being a young person there. But they really did encourage socializing and staying on the campus. It felt very lush.<\/p>\n

When I was moving out from the East Coast from college to the Bay Area, and they encouraged the people to live in these sort of like new developments, in group apartments. I was giving campus tours almost immediately after getting there. So yeah; I was very deep in the bones of sort of like: Here\u2019s all the thoughtfully sourced natural materials, as well as here are all the sensory touches<\/i>. I mean now I think there\u2019s\u2014probably people would roll their eyes a bit more to it. But also I think it was sort of like a celebration of neurodivergence in that way, like: Here\u2019s the ball pit, here\u2019s like the yoga balls, here\u2019s the ways that the engineers can sort of get their ya-yas out in between their coding sessions or whatever.<\/p>\n

So I think there were certain things that were very considered. It\u2019s like how you can have some amazing person designing a children\u2019s playground. It was like they had all these great minds thinking about: How do you foster innovation and collaboration and, you know, of course soak the most productivity out of people?<\/i> Get them to give, you know, 110 percent. But it was quite thoughtful.<\/p>\n

And then, separately, there was so much rhetoric pumping through which was also quite thoughtful. Because I think at the time they said a lot that, you know\u2014you really have to have people sort of hooked into the mission so they feel a stake in it. So they sort of come up with their most creative ideas. So it\u2019s like: We want to capture and harness the amazingness of humans. All of the kind of talking points which I know, because I was giving the campus tour, talking about how amazing the campus was.<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>Did those perks feel to you at the time as earnest perks? Like: This is so great that we can get laundry done, that we can basically live our entire lives inside this little ecosystem here that is work<\/i>? Or did it feel a little bit like: We\u2019re being trapped in a system, so all we do is work<\/i>?<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>Part of my job\u2014I was working in PR at the beginning, and they were giving me kind of lower-priority journalists to take through. And in those days it was a lot of foreign journalists, because the American press had covered the campus a lot. So, you get a lot of journalists from Europe, and they were much more skeptical. So I was aware of this whole thing where they were like: This is totally just an idea, a plot, to keep the workers here 24-7. This is very Big Brother, you know<\/i>. And so I think, internally or externally, I\u2019d be combating that. Like, wow, the cynical person; of course this is completely virtuous.<\/p>\n

There was always a really thoughtful talking point to counter that. Because, you know, who does want to go home when you\u2019re exhausted at the end of the day and do your laundry? It\u2019s nice to not have to drive off campus to get lunch. It\u2019s like, right there and whatever. So I mean, I think that I was able to sort of see that there were some aspects that were kind of about keeping people there, and keeping them super engaged.<\/p>\n

But only much, much later was I able to actually analyze the emotional effects and also the kind of difficult golden-handcuffs effects\u2014where then people feel uncomfortable speaking out in any sort of difficult situation with management, because you\u2019re so grateful and you sort of feel spoiled. And all these other things where you could see how it degrades a\u00a0 healthy kind of back-and-forth in office culture.<\/p>\n

But you know, I felt really lucky to have this job, and I think there, at the time, it was like everyone\u2019s so impressed by it. It\u2019s just like the way it is in life; you know, when people are telling you, \u201cWhat a lucky girl you are to have this job.\u201d The reality of it, you know, as I trace in the book\u2014it was always a bit more complicated.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/b> So you write about\u2014you were involved in the internal marketing for Google, right? Selling the story of Google to itself. And you write about in many ways that you became the voice of Google. So how did that happen? And then for those of us who might be blissfully unaware, what is the voice of Google?<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>With Google\u2019s sort of obsession with its own culture, there was a lot of lore, internal lore. So, you know, there were\u2014the executives would kind of become characters in the TV show, because there was so much internal communications. Larry and Sergey hosting the weekly meeting kinda felt like a revival; you know, like all the executives would kind of get up there.<\/p>\n

And you know, there was a meme message board that was launched, sort of just a few years after I got there. There was so much internal chatter. So I think the company culture created its own little characters. So when I first got there, one of the first things I was ever assigned to do was work on TGIF [a weekly meeting]. The internal communications team wrote the script for Larry and Sergey.<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>Who are the founders of Google, for people who don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>The founders of Google, yeah. I think they\u2019re like, Ben and Jerry. It\u2019s like they\u2019re kind of these folksy American characters, though now they\u2019re, you know, seen [as] much more nefarious. But they were huge celebrities internally\u2014but they were really accessible. And so they would broadcast the TGIF video, you know, to the far-flung locations in Mountain View, and you know, call these kind of growing satellite offices around the world. So one of the first tasks I had, a few months in, was sending around the logistical information for this meeting. Like, how to tune in to this meeting. And so, you know, it was like a very straight email at first. And I just sort of, as it went with this huge growing company, I had a lot of leeway. You know, a lot of leash. So sort of started, you know, kinda slowly getting a little, putting a little more personality in it.<\/p>\n

Which I think, you know, for better or for worse, kinda hit the vibe of Google at that time. Which was kind of geeky, kind of like riffing on the rhetorical talking points of the time and the products and the new things. It\u2019s just like how, you know, someone that sends like the emails for your kids\u2019 school has amazing name recognition. That\u2019s like, I don\u2019t want to oversell\u2014but it was kinda like that. It\u2019s like, you can\u2019t not know who Claire Stapleton is, because I\u2019m sending this email like every single week for five years. I mean, it was kind of amazing that it went on for so long. And I think back, you know, very fondly of it.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/b> So part of this book, as I see it, is really about what happens when a company evolves into a corporation, right? When company culture becomes more bureaucratic and a little bit less human. And you describe some of the features of Google\u2019s corporate culture. These sort of endless performance reviews. But also something that really stuck out for me is the corporate idea of radical accountability. What was radical accountability inside Google, and what effect did it have on the culture of the place?<\/p>\n

Stapleton:<\/b> They put all the new-comms hires, and I think like broader swaths of the new hires that came out of college into a training program. Which was run by a guy named Fred Kofman, whom Sheryl Sandberg has sort of credited with profoundly altering her life. He\u2019s sort of like a Valley executive-coach guy. But it was theoretically about how to live your values in a career, how to be courageous in the world. It sort of sounded very tonally in tune with everything else about Google. You know: Here you are; be an owner. You know, like this is a place to really contribute to the world, to help change the world. But actually, really what the training was about was something called radical accountability<\/i>\u2014which was that, as a young person in the corporation, you should really never blame your circumstances. You know, a classic example would be: You come into a meeting, and you\u2019re a few minutes late. You shouldn\u2019t say, Traffic made me late<\/i>. You say, I should have left earlier because of traffic<\/i>. You know, it\u2019s sort of like presenting yourself that way in a corporation makes you a very attractive young hire. That\u2019s basically what they were saying to us.<\/p>\n

One of the other lines was that you should strive to be a player at all times, never a victim. You know\u2014victims are bad, like, you\u2019re a taker. Nothing is ever the system\u2019s fault, the hierarchy\u2019s fault. And so I found this amazing Gchat that I\u2019d sent to my brother when I went to this training, being like: Today I found out that if my team is dysfunctional, it\u2019s my fault.<\/i> And I was joking about it. I was able to kind of have the, you know, distance from it to be like: This is a little slightly whack that they\u2019re like telling people who are like 22years old that, you know, don\u2019t expect to change anything around you, because your life is what you make of it.<\/i> And like, If you want to be a rock star, then, you know, you better not be kind of criticizing anything about the corporation.<\/i><\/p>\n

And even though I was sort of criticizing at the time, I found that it was very pernicious. You know, it\u2019s pernicious ideology for me personally, because as I, you know, wended my way through different roles in the company and found myself in situations that were pretty messed up. I think I was sort of like: Be a player, not a victim; be a player, not a victim<\/i>. You know, move on, one foot in front of the other, your life is what you make of it. But there\u2019s real limits to that when you run up against the company doing things that you really disagree with. Or things start to sort of like pile up, as they did in me<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/b> You talk about Larry Page as the ultimate techno-optimist, right? The ultimate, like: We can solve anything through innovation and hard work<\/i>. The wanting to cure death, the Project Calico, with the infamous TIME<\/i> cover there. And then these phrases he had, this: \u201cHave a healthy disregard for the impossible,\u201d or \u201cComputers should do the hard work so humans can get back to doing what humans do best: learning, living, loving.\u201d It\u2019s very live, laugh, love<\/i> coded there. Because not a lot of people get a front-row seat for this type of person.<\/p>\n

I am curious; from your perspective, how much of that techno-optimism felt really genuine from your vantage point? How much did you feel that these people really believed that?<\/p>\n

Stapleton:<\/b> I think I did. I was sort of still going with the tide. And Larry came in pretty hot with this. He used to say that if we only had two million Googlers, think of all the good we can do. Because again, we\u2019re continuing here from: Here we are, this sort of rarefied species of, you know, world-changers with all these resources. And we need to solve the world\u2019s biggest problems.<\/i> He was really, like, putting the whole Google-mission thing on steroids at this time. I think two things were true. Like, at the same time that I was sort of saying, This sounds kind of hokey; it sounds kind of unreal<\/i>\u2014it also seemed inevitable that yes, Google will, you know, solve these things. And that sounds great. I look forward to Google, you know, curing death. Or whatever it was like. Even though, yeah, looking back it was sort of like\u2014wow, some of the actual progress Google was making was quite banal.<\/p>\n

And Larry Page’s role as the CEO would be that, you know, everyone has not only amazing world changing problems to work on, but that they feel that they are seen and sort of nourished as human beings within the company. And I think that even though in interpersonally to see s him sort of on the stage at TJIF, he was not the warmest and fuzziest person, but he seemed to have like a very strong kind of moralistic streak about how companies should operate and how they should really, you know, take care of their employees. So it would have been really hard for me, even with a little bit of cringing at the rhetoric, to think like, this guy’s totally full of it. It was\u2014it actually sounded like to some extent quite refreshing because I think he was even putting a little bit more bones behind the kind of freewheeling fun campus stuff of yesteryear.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/b> This might sound naive on my part, but you talk a lot about everyone being really bought into this idea of helping build the future. What future did you personally think you were building, that Google was building? Like, what did that look like in your mind\u2019s eye? Was it really vague, and just kind of like: It\u2019s gonna be better because of all this<\/i>? Or did you have your own ideology about it?<\/p>\n

Stapleton:<\/b> Where things started to kind of slowly break down for me, over time, is what is actually my contribution. Not only can I not exactly see the world that Larry Page is proposing with the sort of army of Googlers, you know, kind of flipping everything on its head. But here I am, writing like internal comms, you know, or doing ghostwriting for, you know, an executive who\u2019s like kind of an a-hole. Who\u2019s like, you know, selling ads, because I was working on the ads business for a while. Which is really, that\u2019s actually what the company was doing. Like it was, you know, building an online-advertising juggernaut. It was a little sad when I was like, you know, kind of going through the book or process the last year or two. And thinking: No shade, but, like, what did Google actually ever do in any of the categories of things that Larry was talking about?<\/i><\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>Well, not to not to not to defend Larry and Sergey here. But as a devil\u2019s advocate, I think what\u2019s fascinating about a company like Google and some of these tech companies is that the initial thing actually is wildly impressive, right? Organizing the world\u2019s information; like you can make a strong case at Google, that was the mission statement. Google did that, right? Like, they built something incredibly powerful; changed the way that everyone accessed information. These things were very powerful. I think it\u2019s easy to\u2014and not that you\u2019re doing this\u2014but it\u2019s very easy for everyone to say, yeah, like what did they do, right? And then you look at like, you know\u2014like, Gmail was a revelation when it came out.<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>Yeah. Google Maps, yeah.<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>Google Maps has changed the way people get around. These products are huge. Like the photos, the cloud storage, the things that they have done. Even the ad business. And the juggernaut, you know, propelled a lot of people into having sustainable business models on the internet, early on. So I totally actually understand that feeling.<\/p>\n

But there is something that\u2019s fascinating about the vagueness of it. You said in an interview previously that during the Google tenure you had that feeling that there was like a meaninglessness to the work, sometimes, that you were tasked with doing. I\u2019m curious; what specifically felt meaningless?<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>Yeah, okay, so I never once felt that in my early, kind of internal-comms journey. But then I spent another five years at Google in the marketing department of YouTube. And this is where all that\u2019s coming from. Because the Google marketing team, specifically was, you know, hiring like gangbusters. Not just internal full-time Googlers, but also we had a whole cottage industry of agencies. And what we were doing was brand marketing for YouTube. Some of it would cycle through as we\u2019re trying to improve our relationship with women or creators of color. So there\u2019d be specific initiatives.<\/p>\n

But really, we were like a social-media operation that was massive. I mean, it was just like, you know, millions of dollars for every campaign. I mean, we had multimillion-dollar budgets with all these agencies. And what we were doing was producing like a couple tweets a day, right? So imagine like, you know, 30 or 35 people at YouTube working on the Twitter account. So that kind of stuff. And so my husband\u2019s an architect, which has its frustrations in different ways, but like: You\u2019re building a house brick by brick. And here I am, it\u2019s just like, kind of it was a bullshit job. I like going to the gym every day. And it was just like, everybody\u2019s there. Just like, you know, gravy train. I would have these existential moments where I\u2019m like: Okay, what is YouTube doing? YouTube is, you know, connecting the world through video<\/i>. And we had all these vague goals about being part of the cultural conversation.<\/p>\n

But all this is to say\u2014was tremendous resources, human resources, money. You know, sweat; the urgency of it, all the time, for what was like forgettable tweets. I mean, no offense to the people who still work on this stuff. It\u2019s, you know\u2014I\u2019m sure people find meaning in their jobs in all these different ways. But I personally found that really hard. I think particularly because I\u2019d, you know, been weaned on this sort of \u201cyour work should feel like it matters.\u201d By that point, I was just like\u2014I look around, and I\u2019m seeing bloat. And seeing like, you know, as my former manager\u2019s big character of the book said: You don\u2019t get a gold star for coming in under budget<\/i>. Which is what she said to me, trying to justify us doing some, like, ridiculous creator event in L.A.; which\u2014it didn\u2019t matter. I mean it\u2019s all these things like making, you know, YouTube-branded cupcakes. People will be shocked where the money goes.<\/p>\n

Warzel:\u00a0 <\/b>The cupcake budget. I would love to see the cupcake. Please leak me the cupcake budget, if you haven\u2019t already. No; this is what I wanted to get into, because you describe Google as becoming bloated and inefficient. And in many ways, this is fascinating because it\u2019s a criticism that\u2019s shared across ideologies, right? Back in 2024, Mike Solana, this Peter Thiel\u2013orbit guy who has a website as well and blogs, has argued that Google got bloated and stagnant as a result of being \u201coverly woke,\u201d right? But then, there are other arguments that have nothing to do with, you know, the liberal-minded nature of this. Just that there was bloat and stagnation. What happened, in your mind, to Google in this time period? This 2010-to-2018 period, where that stagnation was really occurring?<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>I think it was a couple things, and a lot of it was organizational psychology. I think it\u2019s probably this weird, wonky strain of the be a player, not a victim <\/i>thing\u2014where you end up with incredible kind of corporate game players, who are able to kind of play the court politics. I think what happens between 2010 on, as the political landscape is changing, the social-media landscape is changing, I think the executives are feeling like they\u2019re losing their grip.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump Is Choosing His Slush Fund Over Todd Blanche<\/a><\/p>\n

So with my zone of social media, or from social-media marketing, it was sort of like, all the kids. You know, Gen Z is all on TikTok or Instagram, and YouTube\u2019s gonna lose this audience unless we could make any number of arguments there, right? There\u2019d be different teams working on smartwatches at the same time. Like, that\u2019s kind of vaguely demoralizing. It\u2019s also inefficient.<\/p>\n

But again, the smartwatches thing. Like\u2014Well, this is in the air, and like Apple\u2019s coming along. And we need to be in this, because otherwise we\u2019re gonna lose<\/i>. Google Plus was also motivated by, you know: We\u2019re gonna lose being people\u2019s portal to the web, because Facebook. There\u2019s gonna be a Facebook browser, and then, you know, we\u2019re screwed<\/i>. Or whatever.<\/p>\n

So I think that Google\u2019s domain ended up bleeding\u2014you know, it\u2019s like all the internet\u2019s domains kind of bled together, where social media becomes dominant. You know, search is still huge, but then AI comes along. And it\u2019s really hard to to keep it all sort of organized with a vision, because it\u2019s just so unwieldy. And then in that unwieldiness, I think you end up reading a lot of different toxic work cultures, or opportunistic kind of leaders come in, and all these other things. But yeah\u2014I constantly hear from people that it just has not been a happy place to work for a long time. Despite the tremendous resources and still impressive workplaces, and everything else. Or offices, that is.<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>It feels like a victim of its own success, right? When you grow in that way, when you have unlimited money; \u201cyou\u2019re not gonna get any points for coming in under budget.\u201d And people spend, and people build out those things. But at the same time, you have to be in this defensive crouch, right? That\u2019s what it feels like from the outside; there were these initial world-beating products, and after a while you just start guarding them. But at the same time, you are growing. But if you\u2019re guarding and you\u2019re growing at the same time, it just turns into this really odd\u2014and it sounds like, just like totally unwieldy\u2014bureaucracy that nobody really knows what anyone else is doing. Which gives them the ability to do things that maybe other people wouldn\u2019t want them to do. Or it\u2019s not organized in any way.<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>Yeah; there\u2019s a lot of anxiety, and not enough constraints, probably. Like, just the unlimited money of it. People could always argue for more money. And what does that all lead to?<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>And so this all kind of leads to the 2017, 2018 timeframe. And you\u2019re best known for helping to organize Google\u2019s famous 2018 walkout, which is in response to a number of issues inside the company. Including what you and others alleged was a culture that had problems with sexual harassment and discrimination. And in the case of one executive, Andy Rubin, a very lucrative exit package after allegations of sexual impropriety that he, we should note, still denies. But I want to understand more how you ended up playing such an important role here. Because that\u2019s not there; there’s this way that you describe yourself in the book as being a real, you know, cheerleader for this company, and feeling really in line with the type of messaging. And kind of like plugging into the system. And yet you ended up playing this crucially important role in this dissent. How do you feel like you got there?<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>For me, the lead-up was the radical experience of having a kid, and coming back from maternity leave with sort of like bleary\u2014you know, fresh eyes. But my work at that time at YouTube was so focused on cheerleading the virtues. I was plagued with always having a cheerleader role. Like, no matter what my kind of technical title was, it was like: We\u2019re putting Claire, and like, the new thing we\u2019re gonna trumpet and be enthusiastic about. It\u2019s like a paid enthusiast, right? Mercenary.<\/p>\n

So I think that kind of job\u2014which requires a lot of sort of inner conviction, because if you really think that that\u2019s not true, or that\u2019s a lie, or you\u2019re selling something that\u2019s false, then it\u2019s really hard to do that job. So I just usually was able to kind of manufacture enough, you know, enthusiasm to do these jobs. Did this big get-out-the-vote campaign, which was sort of understood to be about helping, you know, get out the vote for the youth. But then also, YouTube\u2019s creator class was becoming really complicated. And the dark underbelly of YouTube was sort of coming to the fore, where a lot of the biggest creators on the platform were kind of, you know, pushing the Overton window. Or becoming this sort of\u2014it was becoming very popular to be a provocateur, like PewDiePie becoming, you know, anti-PC and all these other things.<\/p>\n

Not to put a value judgment on the sort of like, you know, gamers of the platform. But more that, simultaneously being told to run an International Women\u2019s Day campaign, when every time we post something about that online, people are like, Why do you never take any action to protect women on your own platform?<\/i> It\u2019s like, you sort of want the credit for, you know, the pinkwashing or the big Pride campaign. But when, you know, the creator community raises the things they\u2019d actually want, in terms of\u2014it\u2019s like, you know, you can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk? It was like, I was constantly faced with that cognitive dissonance. Because of being the sort of forward-facing person for the company, but then also seeing all this very, very valid, you know, criticism. And I think also trying to grapple with this sort of narrative that YouTube was a net positive for society, at a time when it seemed like it was contributing to a lot of things that were very polarizing and negative within society.<\/p>\n

So all this is to say: It was sort of brewing in me. And I just, you know, had not been in organizing before. There was already the kind of fabric of Googler, \u201cthe tech won\u2019t build it\u201d movement. Which I think is a really great phrase\u2014which is basically like, you know, people who are technologists, who are thinking of the implications of their technology. Very interesting ethical conversations were going on, and in different pockets of the company. I was not involved in any of that when I got into the organizing with the walkout; simply was someone who was used to being on all these message boards and internal threads. Probably from my vestige of my years in the communications department, where I used to monitor these things. But I also just love to sort of chat online. It\u2019s kind of my way around.<\/p>\n

And so, you know, I was in this moms\u2019 group. There was an anonymous moms\u2019 group that was not political at all. But the day that this sort of big New York Times<\/i> story broke\u2014which was about Andy Rubin, but also about a couple of other executives who\u2019d either had relationships with women at the company, which had ended badly for the woman. Or there was some stuff during the hiring process where there\u2019d just been like a\u2014it was a weird soup of things in this article. And what was fascinating, for me, was that it created this rupture in the moms\u2019 group. Where people were all of a sudden starting to talk about the ways they\u2019ve been disappointed by\u2014I mean, not just Google. It was like their life in tech, of just how little progress it seemed the tech industry had made since the kind of bro culture, brotopia. You know, back in the kind of old days of the \u201990s and early \u201900s. That still there was a lot of opportunity discrimination, a kind of boys\u2019-club environment. As well as people being outright sort of sexually harassed. And how hard it was, given this sort of radical-accountability culture, to raise it; to have any semblance of justice. And it was exciting to think that, you know, in a company that did, at least on paper, celebrate employee voice, and, you know, welcome dissent and all these other things. Which\u2014whether or not that was authentic at all at that point\u2014I thought, This is a time to push it<\/i>. Because the world seemed to be having this kind of interesting conversation about the patriarchy.<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>#MeToo.<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>Yeah, #MeToo. I mean #MeToo; it was really the biggest context here in a lot of different ways. But anyway, even when I started to write the book, I was like: How did I end up doing that?<\/i> Because I\u2019m like, you know, not the ultimate stay-in-line rule-follower you\u2019ve ever met, but it was a little bit out of character. But I can really see how it was sort of just like things were bottled up. And I was a little bit like, I also I felt quite safe. Because I was like, you know, even if Google would want to punish the women who were doing this\u2014someone like me, who\u2019s been around forever, I have the protection of the fact that it would look so bad. You know, to futz around with anyone\u2019s job. Even though that was incredibly naive. But yeah.<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>The walkout is this very, very prominent event in the world of tech that spills out into broader culture as a part of this\u2014you know, the #MeToo stone in the pond rippling out everywhere. It was initially praised by your bosses, right, as representing the classic principles of a Googler. Just standing up, doing the right thing, having that virtue. But then, there\u2019s what you\u2019ve alleged as this retaliation from Google, right? That your boss starts to reassign your role, change who you report to. And, you know, you note that at one time the company\u2019s narrative seemed to be even that you were having your own mental struggles alongside all of this, as the fallout of this. So then, you start to negotiate your exit. And you left in 2019. But there are parallels that I found going through your story to the pandemic era, right? Where there\u2019s this employee backlash over politics and labor issues in Silicon Valley around George Floyd protests, around COVID, all of that\u2014followed by, almost immediately once people start to return to the office a little bit, an employer crackdown.<\/p>\n

And so I\u2019m curious how you viewed that tension, going through what you went through from afar. Like\u2014and broadly, the question I guess, is like: How do you think Big Tech\u2019s executives view their workforces?<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>I think that, you know, they really overcorrected. Because even though with Meredith [Whittaker] and me, and there are a couple of other women who\u2014there was this funny business around our roles and the shifting of our responsibilities. Which we thought was clearly illegal. But then, you know, in the coming months, I mean\u2014there were these five people that they fired. They outright fired five people around that Thanksgiving, that very year. So we left in June. And the NLRB [National Labor Relations Board] sued on these people\u2019s behalf, and they settled with Google.<\/p>\n

So Google was like at that point: No more Mr. Nice Google<\/i>. They were clearly like: We need to completely rearticulate the relationship between the workforce.<\/i><\/p>\n

I think it has, ever since then, it\u2019s been this constant rearticulation of the power. Where I think that there\u2019s\u2014so all the philosophy that was around, giving workers power because that was great for not only the company culture, but for the company bottom line. Because people bring their best selves, and all that. They\u2019ve just completely thrown that out the window in the service of: We\u2019d prefer to concentrate control with the executives at the top. And if that sucks to be you, well then fair enough.<\/i> Because we think now, precarity and the threat of layoffs and, you know, all these other things\u2014the chilling effects\u2014are more important for serving our goal of maintaining leadership\u2019s steady hand or whatever.<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>It\u2019s maybe obvious, but also just such an interesting about-face. Because the Larry Page idea of \u201cthis should be a family\u201d was not unique to Google. This was broadly a tech-industry trend, right?<\/p>\n

Stapleton<\/b>: Yeah; Salesforce, Ohana.<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>Right. We are here doing this thing together. You\u2019re gonna give as much<\/i><\/p>\n

focus and attention as you would to your family, but you\u2019re also gonna be rewarded with that broader feeling. <\/i>And then the crackdown coming was very much, you know\u2014I experienced it reporting on it in 2021, as like: You will not bring this part of yourself to work. In fact, you will just bring the part of yourself that works. And everything else, we\u2019re gonna leave this to the side.<\/i> It is such a fascinating about-face.<\/p>\n

I want to talk a little bit about the idea of empathy, because there\u2019s this period of the time in the book where you\u2019re working at the Creative Lab at Google. And you detail this boys\u2019-club atmosphere, where the executives are always talking about empathy, right? Empathy is king, and Google needs to adopt this radical empathy in the design of its products. Step into the user\u2019s shoes, but also in the workplace.<\/p>\n

And then cut\u2014a couple years later, you recount the story of James Damore, this Google engineer who wrote this manifesto about the \u201cGoogle echo chamber,\u201d and how women were less represented in the tech industry because of biological differences. And this memo is rather famously hinging on a lot of specious claims about gender and issues with DEI programs\u2014things that would later become, you know, like the conservative, reactionary obsessions. But one thing that Damore points out in that essay is this need to \u201cde-emphasize empathy.\u201d And this to me is this subtle but important shift in Silicon Valley that you got to experience firsthand. And I\u2019m curious how you parse its evolution.<\/p>\n

Stapleton:<\/b> Yeah; I mean I think what was really interesting with the kind of Creative Lab thing was how it was a marketing tool. I guess it was sort of like\u2014they were trying to hack the mainframe. That if you feel Google is so friendly and so nonthreatening, then you\u2019ll let it sort of deeper into your life. I mean, that was how I took what he meant by empathy<\/i>, which, if you\u2019re listening to it, didn\u2019t feel completely manipulative and nefarious. But it actually is quite disconcerting.<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>The reason why I ask is because, you know, Elon Musk and some of these other titans of Silicon Valley have adopted the Damore-like framework around empathy, right? Musk calls it \u201csuicidal empathy\u201d; you have Marc Andreessen talking about the need for no introspection.<\/p>\n

The reason why I\u2019m curious to ask you this is: It does feel like a pretty big shift. Because even if it was lip service, even if it was in order to get people to, you know, buy into a very specific culture\u2014the, let\u2019s say, 2014 version of \u201cEmpathy is king\u201d is so different as a mindset for how to run your organization than \u201cNo, no, no; empathy is dangerous. Empathy is keeping us from making the decisions we need to make to build the things that are gonna change society.\u201d And I\u2019m just curious: Did you feel that breakage happening?<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>Yeah. I agree that back then there was something to it that was true. It\u2019s like, we have this responsibility; I feel like the way that they\u2019re kind of right.\u00a0 The suicidal empathy\u2014the sort of concept that\u2019s sort of swinging around\u2014is so sad, because I think it that is actually trying to disconnect people from their, you know, their natural connection to other people. And also, as was my situation with the walkout, the idea that caring about other people and, you know, wanting the world to be more inclusive and hospitable to people. I mean, I think people have a tremendous ability to affect the world around them, even as a manager of a small team, right? Or you know, raising your voice in certain ways.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not to say that\u00a0 always [there] is a, you know, linear, path forward. But the idea that we should be cutting ourselves off from empathy because we might, you know, start to care about a person in a war-torn country. And this is, you know, sort of politically threatening to the right-wing project or something? It feels very sad that it\u2019s now been sort of weaponized. It was being perhaps appropriated in ways that were sort of a little creepy or weird.<\/p>\n

But I think ultimately there was something about Larry Page, you know, back in the day\u2014not that he was talking about empathy, but the whole \u201clearning, living, and loving\u201d thing. I think it was sort of like that: Humanity is something that we should celebrate and protect, whether it\u2019s the humanity of our workers or, you know, the humanity of people who use our products.<\/i> And now I think everything just feels quite craven. And it\u2019s sort of like \u201cIt\u2019s our team.\u201d You know, it\u2019s like \u201cthe West must win\u201d or all these other things. Where everything feels so politicized and so tribal that we\u2019ve broken down any of the more kind of utopian aspects of, you know, Google\u2019s philosophy or rhetoric. Whatever it was back in the day.<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>But you worked in this culture. What do you think attributes that change? Is it just like sniffing the political winds and latching onto something, \u2019cause, you know, it\u2019s advantageous? Or do you think it\u2019s a kind of almost madness that\u2019s induced by just having all the money and resources at your disposal? What do you think is responsible for that change? I know you can\u2019t answer definitively, but you worked with those people.<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>No; it\u2019s really interesting. It\u2019s weird. Like someone leaked the TGIF when Trump was elected the first time, and Larry and Sergey are there. All the executives are up there; they\u2019re shocked. Sergey gives this whole speech about, you know: Myself as an immigrant; I\u2019m so offended by this, and I know it\u2019s just so hard to realize how many people don\u2019t share our values.<\/i> And he was like, you know, protesting the immigrant ban. And to now imagine that, you know, by the time Trump was reelected, he\u2019s second row of the inauguration, with all the rest of the tech CEOs\u2014I do think that inevitably having so much money and power, I think it seems like it creates a form of brain rot. Like, I just don\u2019t think that you exist on the planet in a normal way at all.<\/p>\n

And I can\u2019t really account for how quickly the mask slipped with the tech CEOs who were seemingly so offended by Trump at the beginning, and now are like on the MAGA train as hardcore as anyone else. And I think that, of course, all the layers of people underneath will get in line at the company, because my team and the marketing team, by definition, we were, you know, deploying whatever the corporate wind was. So before it was kind of, you know, the resistance: We wanna stand up for trans kids<\/i>. And all these other things in the, you know, earlier Trump administration. And now they\u2019ve dialed down all the political stuff. There\u2019s no mention of diversity and all these other things. They\u2019ve reworded things. No longer could be, you know, accused on the social-media channels of being \u201clib,\u201d in any way.<\/p>\n

So there are these sort of trends, and these things that sort of fall out of favor because the marketing team\u2019s following the executives, or what they think is popular with the public. These companies are no longer trying to take a stand as a brand, you know, on social media.<\/p>\n

But the people at the top\u2014I think it\u2019s completely confounding. And I don\u2019t understand. Because could it really be so simple, with all of them leaving California for the wealth tax? Of course that amount of money would never affect their life\u2014whatever that one-time payout could be. But they\u2019re so kind of vehemently and existentially opposed to that. You have to think they\u2019re just like, you know, radicalizing each other in group chats, just like any other segment of the population.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s genuinely surprising, because they were much more interested in, you know, positioning themselves as sort of like benevolent kings of the universe before. And now, you know, it\u2019s just\u2014the vibe has completely shifted.<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>You write that \u201cTech didn\u2019t solve the world\u2019s problems, but it\u2019s intensified and monetized them.\u201d And you continue, saying that: \u201cGoogle said it would change the world. It did. I just didn\u2019t expect the transformation to feel so relentlessly hollow.\u201d<\/p>\n

I mean this question not flippantly, just earnestly. What did you expect the transformation to feel like? Like, when you look back on it, does it feel like that early faith in the company was naive? Or does it feel like there was a different path that Google did not have to evolve and grow in the way that it did? How do you see that?<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>Yeah. I think the company was more guided by, you know, engineering feats and technological challenges. And then something shifted, as we\u2019ve entered a later stage in sort of like empire or the industry or whatever. Where everything seems to be just driven by your typical kind of capitalistic pursuits and exploits and the, you know, shareholders. Whatever; all these things, right? And it seems more like trying to preserve the empire than doing literally any of the things that Larry Page was talking about in 2010, of solving the world\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n

I mean, Google was always, you know, doing their earnings call and doing talking points every year. About how we\u2019re gonna continue to grow, and da da da, whatever. But it just seems like the whole thing is guided by wealth and power. Which is the exact opposite of what they said they wanted to go. So even though Google did have incredible\u2014you\u2019re right, with the search and the maps and all these other, Gmail, these sort of utilities. And the technologies that were so transformative to the world.<\/p>\n

But anything else outside, any other problems that humanity faces\u2014Google isn\u2019t tackling those. It\u2019s just sort of continuing to just, you know, siphon money out of the system. It\u2019s like the input of everything in the world, and let\u2019s keep it that way, is what the kind of mission of Google feels like to me today. Which is quite bleak. That\u2019s not an inspiring vision. And it\u2019s just such a change, you know, from even what\u201415 years ago? I mean, most of this was happening.<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>There\u2019s a moment near the beginning of your memoir where you\u2019re describing an early job you had as a kid, as a waitress. And realizing at some point, or hearing someone say, that you got promoted in part because you looked the part. And in this moment, you write, How do you challenge a system? Things you know are messed up when the system is rewarding you.<\/i> And I wanted to end by asking: How would you answer that question today?<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>I think that, for me, one of the most radicalizing moments was when we were planning the walkout. I sent around a Google form saying, What compels you to do this? Why are you doing this?<\/i> And, you know, we got a couple hundred responses. And I read them all, sort of agog at what other people had experienced. And it was starting to knit together this latent layer of things that I had experienced at the company. Some of my kind of more existential qualms with the direction of the company. With the rhetoric, you know, with the day-to-day things I was experiencing. And starting to form, you know, a worldview that is less understanding of the system, right? Like, as a manager, I\u2019d seen so many things happen with the contractors on my team, kind of getting cut or shuttled around in ways that felt quite inhumane to me. Or I didn\u2019t have power over, or maybe I did in certain ways in different times, but, you know\u2014I am someone who’s sort of guided by empathy for other people.<\/p>\n

And part of my sentimental education here, my arc, was to be able to say that even though things, generally speaking work, for me\u2014this isn\u2019t the kind of world that I want to live in. The kind of world I want to, you know, have kids in. And all these things.<\/p>\n

I think that Google capitalized on this impulse, which many people have, to be part of something bigger than themselves. That was a lot of the philosophical thinking about the mission. Was if people\u2014it doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re a customer-service operator, if you feel like the company is doing really good things that are gonna make the world a better place, you\u2019re gonna be excited and invigorated to come in. And, you know, do your job in the widgets factory or whatever.<\/p>\n

And when that started to break down for me, I still had the feeling that I wanted to contribute to something bigger than myself and to leave the world better than I found it. Or, you know, whatever. I no longer feel so attached to I must protect the status quo, because I have my place in it. And I\u2019m rewarded for that. <\/i>You know, if I truly still felt that way, I could have easily put my head down and just not rocked the boat. Or upset the apple cart, so to speak.<\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/b>Claire, thank you so much for coming on Galaxy Brain<\/i> and talking about all this with us. Really appreciate it.<\/p>\n

Stapleton: <\/b>It was fun. Thank you so much.<\/p>\n

This episode of Galaxy Brain<\/i> was produced by Renee Klahr and Hadley Robinson, edited by Nat Frum and engineered by Miguel Carrascal. Our theme is by Rob Smierciak. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic<\/i> audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.<\/p>\n

Read more Climate Change Is Destabilizing the Ground Beneath Our Feet<\/a><\/p>\n

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com\/adchoices.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A look inside Silicon Valley\u2019s vibe shift<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcasts"],"yoast_head":"\nGalaxy Brain: Behind the Curtain at Google - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1730\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Galaxy Brain: Behind the Curtain at Google - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A look inside Silicon Valley\u2019s vibe shift\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1730\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-31T17:11:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"46 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1730#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1730\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"Galaxy Brain: Behind the Curtain at Google\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-31T17:11:19+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1730\"},\"wordCount\":9254,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1730#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/197de7a168107666786d783018383c61.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Podcasts\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1730#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1730\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1730\",\"name\":\"Galaxy Brain: Behind the Curtain at Google - 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