Former Google+ Designer Gives Insight into ‘Mismanaged’ Company

A former designer for Google+ posted over one hundred tweets detailing his time at the company, which he claimed was “mismanaged,” wasted resources, and made him “very depressed.”

“Now that Google+ has been shuttered, I should air my dirty laundry on how awful the project and exec team was,” declared former Google+ UI designer Morgan Knutson after Google announced the conclusion of its social network this month. “I’m still pissed about the bait and switch they pulled by telling me I’d be working on Chrome, then putting me on this god forsaken piece of shit on day one.”

Now that Google+ has been shuttered, I should air my dirty laundry on how awful the project and exec team was.

I'm still pissed about the bait and switch they pulled by telling me I'd be working on Chrome, then putting me on this god forsaken piece of shit on day one.

— Morgan (@morganknutson) October 9, 2018

In his series of posts, Knutson criticized the “mismanagement” at Google, alleged the company wasted resources, and claimed the job made him “very depressed.”

“I became very depressed. I didn’t want go in to the office. It was clear that I was not welcome,” declared Knutson, adding that he was made to work through the night his grandma was dying in order to meet a deadline the next morning, which was ultimately canceled due to his manager partying the night before.

He also claimed “Google+ was such a massive waste of resources. For example, every person at Google gets a corporate card. The entire design team was given a $500 allowance to buy any device they wanted,” and described it as a “relief” when he was finally offered a job at Dropbox, where he ended up making Forbes 30-under-30 list.

After his series of posts went viral, Knutson also claimed he had received messages from other Google employees who had “experienced similar things.”

“Received a number of DMs from former and current google [sic] employees that say they’ve experienced similar things,” Knutson posted. “Bad politics, mismanagement, and back-stabbing colleagues.”

I’ve received a number of DMs from former and current google employees that say they’ve experienced similar things.

Bad politics, mismanagement, and back-stabbing colleagues.

‍♂️

— Morgan (@morganknutson) October 15, 2018