Google is losing & firing top personnel

00:00:00: Ready for some Google drama?

00:00:03: Let's go.

00:00:04: Now, this is not even about top AI personal leaving google which cost their stock to drop by five percent reportedly but it's a way more niche story that I as developer find pretty interesting.

00:00:20: Just in pernald ponald you may not know him i didn't before was fired two months ago for creating the Google Workspace CLI.

00:00:31: Now, what's the Google workspace CLI you were asking?

00:00:34: It's exactly what it sounds like!

00:00:35: It's a CLI command line interface that allows you to interact with all those google work space services such as google drive gmail calendar sheet stocks and many more.

00:00:46: why would you do that?

00:00:47: well You probably wouldn't but your AI agent maybe would because we learned this year that AI agents models are pretty good at using command line interfaces, command-line tools.

00:00:59: At least if they're well documented because their pretty good and using the command line in general.

00:01:04: that is why Peter Steinberger creator of Open Claw created his Gawk CLI which a totally unofficial CLI for Google last year already so that open claw can Use that so you can set up your openclawagent and if you ask it to tell which new emails Now kind of makes sense for Google to build an official thing, right?

00:01:41: Because this goxie lie by peter is inofficial.

00:01:44: It would make sense for google to have its official one so that they have a bit more control over it.

00:01:49: They can seem a bit cool and maybe get better stake In the entire agentic ai world.

00:01:59: because remember The hype died down A bit now.

00:02:02: but earlier This year everybody wanted To Get Peter the creator Of open claw.

00:02:07: Mark Zuckerberg wanted to acquire him or hire him, OpenAI did hire him.

00:02:13: Google... I don't know if they tried but yeah this would be a small chance to move a small step forward into being a bit more engaged in that AI agent game here.

00:02:27: so it makes sense that the google team where Justin worked built such an official CLI.

00:02:35: The problem just is that it isn't an official CLI right there on this official not-official GitHub repository page, which is part of an official github repository organization or scope.

00:02:52: but This specific repository they're despite being in the official Google Github or the official google workspace githube account.

00:03:01: Is NOT and officially supported Google product as it says right there on the readme of that repository.

00:03:08: So again, Repository Scope or GitHub account is official.

00:03:13: this repository is not And Justin who created it was fired because of it now As he mentioned in his post on x which you also find below This repository, this tool when Viral hit number one on hacker news gained thousands of github stars and many thousand of actual users in just a couple days.

00:03:34: Why would you fire him then?

00:03:35: if he built something people wanted?

00:03:39: And it was popular why was he fired?

00:03:43: Hold that thought!

00:03:45: Now its not just him.

00:03:47: Eddie Osmani who was top googleer for fourteen years Also left now.

00:03:54: He was maybe not fired.

00:03:55: on LinkedIn he shared a post that it's time to move on and find something new the kind of stuff you write in situations like this And I don't know, i don't have any special insights regarding his departure here.

00:04:08: Maybe he really just wanted to leave it.

00:04:11: In this context that we have here with Justin and Addie Promoting that tool when it was released which is what he did on X It seems like maybe he was pushed to go.

00:04:27: You know, the kind of stuff you do if want get rid somebody but spend there forever and make it a good deal for both sides.

00:04:39: well then offer someone on their own terms before making them leave your term.

00:04:45: Maybe that is what happened here?

00:04:47: I don't think so.

00:04:51: not official, not really supported Google Workspace CLI.

00:04:58: Now as Justin wrote he worked on the workspace DevRel developer relations team and they regularly created open source layers and abstractions over APIs.

00:05:09: And He wrote this because there have been accusations or mentions that he clearly didn't go through the official process for Getting your repository in this case here, which you want to release the public signed off by legal.

00:05:27: There is an interesting thread on hacker news.

00:05:29: You also find a link below Which is super long now.

00:05:32: I took the time To read through many of the comments there and then they're.

00:05:35: you'll find Many ex-googlers at least people claiming to be ex Googlers obviously hard to validate who write that it was pretty normal.

00:05:44: That when you wanted to publish something like this, You had to go through a certain process... ...you have to get approval and It seems like Justin didn't do that here.

00:05:53: now again as he wrote.. ..that's kind of the thing they did.

00:05:56: maybe They always did in the wrong way But nobody cared until this came.

00:06:00: And the question then still is why does Google suddenly care?

00:06:04: Here!

00:06:06: The simple answer clearly Politics.

00:06:09: It's enterprise politics, but there are multiple layers to it.

00:06:14: now.

00:06:15: clearly Google is an AI first company.

00:06:18: I mean every companies a i-first these days.

00:06:21: But of course google yeah, it is a lot about AI.

00:06:23: its about the Gemini models.

00:06:25: They shove AI into your face and every product they build like Microsoft with get up co-pilot.

00:06:30: Gemini is everywhere.

00:06:33: So why would they not support a tool like this which makes using Google services easier for agents, for AI agents?

00:06:41: Well couple of reasons.

00:06:43: Now one reason... Not a good one I think is that Google actually did announce an official CLI.

00:06:53: as it seems though i wasn't able to find That maybe its those google workspace developer tools though Which I found after Justin released the inofficial CLI.

00:07:02: Now, those more official Google Workspace Developer tools for example are about having a Gemini CLI extension for Google workspace development.

00:07:12: now I don't know anybody who uses to Geminis CLI but yeah there was this extension or there is this extension though i guess that doesn't matter because Gemini's CLI is not continued anymore But anyways.

00:07:25: so yep Maybe Google was working on something official and then somebody else suddenly releasing.

00:07:31: Something like this Yeah, obviously not great can definitely catch the team that was working On the official integration on the wrong foot.

00:07:40: now another thing.

00:07:42: Another potential problem of course is if you used any Google products And you certainly have You can sometimes see That there clearly are very different teams pushing their stuff into the same product, I mean take Gemini.

00:07:58: It's in all those Google Workspace products and it is clearly shoved to every single one of them.

00:08:04: we have inconsistent user experiences.

00:08:06: its just flat out broken That suddenly we have a CLI, which makes agents use docs and they are for people not visiting the doc's apps.

00:08:24: Which team that built the Gemini integration of course want!

00:08:27: They want real humans visiting the app so that they used the integrations or hit their numbers and stuff like that.

00:08:33: So clearly politics ARE THE BEST EXCLINATION FOR THIS SPECIFIC case here in my opinion.

00:08:41: Now, obviously you can also ask why do we care about this at all?

00:08:45: I mean some guy being fared by Google who cares right.

00:08:47: that happens all the time and yep!

00:08:49: That is of course kind-of true.

00:08:51: especially Justin already got some nice offers here.

00:08:54: uh write below his post so he will be fine...he'll find a job.

00:08:59: i think it's just really interesting to see how google is struggling with the current rapid development in the AI space, despite being one of the leading companies.

00:09:11: Now clearly they are not really at of those companies.

00:09:17: When we talk about agentic coding, the open AI and enthropic models but also that brand new GLM five point two model are way better than a Gemini models for coding And I don't know any developer who really uses the Gemini Models For Coding and i have a hard time keeping up with all The tools Google is releasing.

00:09:36: That should help me with agent decoding.

00:09:38: I mean Gemini CLI has not continued anymore.

00:09:41: We have anti-gravity.

00:09:42: Who knows when they will stop continuing?

00:09:46: Anyways, they are clearly not at the top when it comes to agent decoding.

00:09:49: But of course The world is NOT just about Agent Decoding and if we look in the consumer space They're fine!

00:09:56: At least for now People still Google And now they got ChatGPT integrated into google that can chat right there.

00:10:04: They've got the AI summaries.

00:10:05: There's little incentive For normal people to switch and use JetGPT for research instead of Google, since it's all there.

00:10:13: It is built into Google so they'll be fine regarding that.

00:10:17: the only area where these top researcher departures here could matter Is That All These Top AI Companies Are Now Racing To Build Systems That Are Self-Improving.

00:10:31: So To Say.

00:10:32: The idea Of Course Is If You Have A Top Model Its Really Good At writing code, you can use it to also accelerate the development of a next even better model.

00:10:43: And... You could build all kinds tools around that and sell them for your customers like Enfropic is doing with Clot Tag, Clot Co-Work or Clot Code.

00:10:55: obviously so having a model great at agendic tasks including coding could be very important for the future, where this leads to like a self-accelerating upward spiral.

00:11:12: And that is what Google COULD fall behind if their models are not as good at agentic tasks and coding Obviously always a bit hard to judge from the outside, but at least that is what it looks like.

00:11:26: That could be a potential problem for Google in the future.

00:11:30: and with top personal leaving It seems as if development inside of google is maybe too slow For those people they want to work at a company that feels more on-the-edge In a little more leading position.

00:11:45: But these are, of course just all speculations.

00:11:49: Just as here with Justin being fired because of the Google Workspace CLI still... The main takeaway and why I find this interesting is that google isn't such a weird place.

00:12:01: i mean such a large company obviously successful in so many different layers.

00:12:06: And again they will likely be fine But then they mess up so bad here, where there could have been the cool guys again.

00:12:13: Where it could've potentially attracted some talent and be more involved in the entire AI agent dabbling.

00:12:22: that's happening at the forefront by all these early adopters right now….

00:12:27: And they decided to not do politics.

00:12:32: Anyways, I thought this was quite interesting here which is why i wanted to share it and as always of course very interested in hearing your thoughts on.