Inside the Crisis at Google

Culture war narratives give Google's organizational coherence a bit too much credit. There's more to the story.

It’s not like artificial intelligence caught Sundar Pichai off guard. I remember sitting in the audience in January 2018 when the Google CEO said it was as profound as electricity and fire. His proclamation stunned the San Francisco audience that day, so bullish it still seems a bit absurd, and it underscores how bizarre it is that his AI strategy now a…