My complete asspull rationale when I saw the distinguished engineer got cut was that maybe they thought he wouldn't be as useful if Google tries to hard pivot into generative ai just because he was so focused on search as a topic. More generally high tenureship could come with baggage as to how they view the business and how things are just done. However, at the end of the day smart people are just smart people and even with a background in another discipline or lots of history at a company can adapt to new modalities of operation and still add value so I don't really believe it.
It is something I could see a manager or other suit saying though when looking over salaries to justify the decision...
It is something I could see a manager or other suit saying though when looking over salaries to justify the decision...