Yeah. "Ex Googler" used to mean "probably a really smart person".
Now as I was reading through that article I kept thinking things like "How are they gonna rug pull buyers?" "What's gonna happen when they hold someone's home heating to ransom because they aren't paying some backend service subscription?" "Who're they planning upon selling room occupancy and energy use data to?" "How much legitimately purchased and expensively installed hardware is gonna end up bricked when this "20% project" get's graveyarded because the person driving it got distracted by some new shiny project?"
The individuals at google are largely not responsible for various business transgressions you might have. There are plenty of people trying to do their best in the environment they were in. Ex-Googlers aren't inherently people who want to be shady, there is no reason to assume this business would be any shadier than any other Silicon Valley business.
The comment was about the caché of assosciation with Google.
Regardless of the reality of the character of any individual Google employee or ex employee, the point is valid that Google's name comes with a different, and worse, impression today than yesterday.
Man, this is such horseshit. You work for Google, you do so voluntarily and you’re implicitly signing on to their way of business. You’re culpable. You don’t get to take the big salary paid for by the transgressions of the top guys and still have clean hands, and it is total bullshit to be an apologist for anyone that signs up for it.
