"10. In a large company, countless variables are outside your control - organizational changes, management decisions, market shifts, product pivots. Dwelling on these creates anxiety without agency.

The engineers who stay sane and effective zero in on their sphere of influence. You can’t control whether a reorg happens. You can control the quality of your work, how you respond, and what you learn. When faced with uncertainty, break problems into pieces and identify the specific actions available to you.

This isn’t passive acceptance but it is strategic focus. Energy spent on what you can’t change is energy stolen from what you can."

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Point 10 makes it sound like the culture at Google is to stay within your own bailiwick and not step on other people's toes. If management sets a course that is hostile to users and their interests, the "sane and effective" engineers stay in their own lane. In terms of a company providing services to users, is that really being effective?

User interests frequently cross multiple bailiwicks and bash heads with management direction. If the Google mindset is that engineers who listen to users are "weird" or not "sane"/"effective", that certainly explains a lot.