This resonates strongly with my experience at Google as well. Specifically in ads, you got the feelings that none of the product leadership used the product or tried to drive a direction for where the product should be going. The end-result was full-on Conway’s law (every team having their own separate pages), weird overlaps between a bunch of things (P-Max, Smart and App campaigns) and no real goals except maximizing metrics such as $$$ and # of campaigns using automation.

Of course, when Google Ads is the only way to buy ads on Google Search, revenue will go up regardless of whether Google Ads is a good product. Advertiser will go through any hoops if those ads make them money.

But then revenue goes up, the leadership pats themselves on the back for a job well done, plays musical chair a bit and let the product turn into an even bigger pile of mush.