Right. If you're above the Real Googler Line, then not only do you have 20% time, but no one's going to stop you from spending 100% of your time on your 20%T project... it will delay your promotion if your 20%T project isn't successful, but that's all. Real Googlers don't sweat Perf or worry about getting fired. They only pay attention to managerial demands when life events (such as having a kid) increase their expenses and they could really use a promotion this year. Otherwise, they do whatever they want.

If you're below the Real Googler Line, and most new hires are, your 20%T project is your 80%T project: appease your manager. Nothing else matters, not "performance" in the abstract or doing something great for the company. Forget all those distractions. If you're below the RGL, your job is to please your boss and serve his career goals. "Peer review" won't protect you, either, if you're at a lower level, because no one below Staff is taken seriously as a peer reviewer. (Remember, they aren't Real Googlers.)

The whole story around "Google culture" is based on what Google is like for people above the RGL, but it takes several years to get there, and it's next to impossible if you're not at one of the top 3 or 4 campuses.

The Real Googler Line used to be at the Senior rank, but now it seems to be closer to Staff (and some Staff SWEs seem to be below the RGL). That means that if you come in at the SWE 3 level, you're two promotions away from it, in a company where the average promote rate is about 10-15% per year. Unless you have a star manager who gets his reports promoted like butter, you're wasting your time.

Google needed to grow a pair and fight to protect its culture from all these transplant executives who brought in terrible ideas from other companies with shit cultures. It needed to man the fuck up and make open allocation an official, unassailable plank of the culture. Now it's too late.