“If Nobody's Angry, You're Not Disruptive Enough”: Top 3 Wisdoms from Building AI at Google

Leadership mantras, well-intentioned platitudes, and the occasional corporate koan - these flow freely at large companies like candy from a Pez dispenser. But amidst the noise, a few genuine insights managed to penetrate my cynical, startup-trained brain. These weren't just catchy slogans; they were fundamental shifts in perspective that changed how I approach work, life, and even the impending heat death of the universe (more on that later).Here are a few genuine insights managed to penetrate my cynical, startup-trained brain. These weren't just catchy slogans; they were fundamental shifts in perspective that changed how I approach work, life, and even the impending heat death of the universe.

This story begins, as many tech tales do, in the trenches. I was part of Google's Global Business Organization (GBO), leading a small, scrappy team tasked with building something genuinely new: copilot features – think intelligent assistants, but before they were ubiquitous – for major products like Google Play and Google Pay. This was back in 2020 and 2021, when the idea of a helpful AI popping up in your app was still somewhat novel and had unknown value. Our mission, in a nutshell, was to leverage the best conversational AI Google had to offer, package it into a sleek, easy-to-integrate mobile app library, and unleash it upon the world (or, at least, upon Google's rapidly expanding user base). The goal? To dramatically scale these apps to hundreds of millions of users without incurring the crippling costs of traditional customer support.

We were gaining traction. I had led three major launches with Gmail, Play, and Pay India. We'd gone from a pilot with a few thousand users to a roadmap projecting half a billion user sessions within the next year. We had a waiting list of over ten Google products. As part of a product incubation team, I felt this was a textbook case of internal product-market fit. One Google product team was so eager (and so clearly fed up with existing solutions) that they escalated directly to my VP to jump the queue. The VP of Google Pay India, upon seeing a preview of the new user experience, called it "a kick-ass product.”

But then came the pushback. Not from users. They were, according to numbers, delighted. This resistance came from within the Googleplex itself. Established teams, comfortable in their legacy systems and well-worn processes, were actively trying to shut down the parade. We'd hear about back-channel conversations, attempts to kill our product, even blatant statements that our project should be shut down.

What was truly getting to me was the impact on the engineering team's morale. To launch products, to see the positive user feedback, to know you're building something valuable, only to hear that supposed strategic partners were actively working to undermine your efforts - it was not the Googley culture I thought I could rely on. Sure, I'd always known that organizations, even within the same company, could be competitive. But I hadn't fully grasped the ferocity of internal turf wars.

That's when my Senior Director, a veteran of the tech industry who had worked on groundbreaking products both at large companies and startups, dropped this wisdom bomb: "If no one's angry, you're not being disruptive enough."

From that day, I started to see the pushback differently. Disruptive innovation, though often lauded in hindsight, is in reality a breeding ground for FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Perhaps this is why it’s difficult to discern real innovation from hype — or, and this is where I’m learning towards — perhaps this is why otherwise genuine innovative technology fizzles out as “just hype”. Well-meaning pragmatists and those clinging to their established roles often stifle true progress. The real victims of internal turf wars aren’t the innovators. It’s users who are denied the better experience, the better solution, the better future.

Previously, the attempts to shut us down felt like I had failed to show my product’s value. Now, my director helped me see it as evidence that we were moving the needle. While users showed their love through some of the highest satisfaction scores Google's support organization had ever seen (humblebrag, I know), I had to learn to embrace the anger, the confusion, the internal resistance. My director had gifted me a judo move, a way to anticipate and leverage the reactions of those who felt we were a threat to their relevance.

Ultimately, this newfound understanding didn't just help me navigate the internal politics; it taught me to navigate them with empathy. Product incubation, especially within a giant like Google, is rarely a smooth ride. I definitely stumbled along the way. But I learned to build bridges – even with those who seemed to have a fondness for arson – to relentlessly advocate for the user, and, crucially, to be a constant source of support and encouragement for my team. Their morale was my responsibility, and I took that seriously. It was a masterclass in organizational dynamics, and it certainly wouldn't be the last time I'd benefit from a Senior Director who understood the delicate dance of disruptive innovation (and the importance of providing air cover when the flak started flying).

And, thankfully, the results validated the approach. Our work touched millions of lives. But the deeper lesson, the one that resonates far beyond the Googleplex, is this: Within any large organization, innovation is a form of controlled demolition. You're tearing down old structures to build something new, and that inevitably creates dust, noise, and a whole lot of disgruntled stakeholders. The user is your blueprint, your North Star, your reason for enduring the chaos. They're the why that justifies the how, even when the how gets messy.

And what does that even mean for startups? The difference is that the demolition is external.

"The Sun Will Explode in 5 Billion Years. Now What?"

This next pearl of wisdom also came from my aforementioned brilliant (and slightly eccentric) Senior Director. We were in his office, probably wrestling with some impending deadline or product launch crisis that felt, at the time, utterly world-ending. He paused, looked out the window, and with the casual air of someone discussing the weather, said, "You know, in about 5 billion years, the sun will explode, and everything we're doing will be completely meaningless."

My immediate internal response was, "Well, that's… uplifting." I almost expected him to start handing out black turtlenecks and existentialist literature.

But then, the deeper meaning sank in. He wasn't advocating for nihilism; he was offering a powerful dose of perspective.

When we're caught in the daily grind, it's incredibly easy to get tunnel vision. Deadlines morph into life-or-death scenarios. Office politics become all-consuming dramas. But in the grand, sweeping tapestry of cosmic time, most of it… just doesn't matter that much.

This isn't a license to be apathetic. It's not about not caring about your work or striving for excellence. It's about choosing your battles wisely, about refusing to sweat the small stuff, about remembering that our time on this ridiculously beautiful, spinning rock is both finite and precious. We should spend it doing things that genuinely matter to us, things that resonate with our souls.

Maybe, just maybe, the true purpose of humanity isn't simply to build ever-more-sophisticated tech, but to somehow outsmart our own cosmic demise. To find a way to cheat the inevitable.

A bit dramatic? Absolutely. But undeniably effective in snapping me out of a deadline-induced panic attack. And, it's a surprisingly useful framework for prioritizing. If a task doesn't contribute, even in some small way, to either my personal fulfillment or humanity's long-term survival… well, maybe it can wait.

"If I Don't Have 30 Minutes to Help a Teammate, I'm Doing Something Wrong"

This final lesson came from Phil, a brilliant PM I encountered during my first, bewildering weeks as a full-time Googler. I was fresh out of college, feeling like a tiny, insignificant cog in a vast, incomprehensible machine. I was desperate for guidance, for someone to throw me a lifeline.

Phil, two levels above me and working on what seemed like the most important projects at the time (at least, that's how it felt to my overwhelmed newbie brain), graciously offered me 30 minutes of his time.

I, of course, gushed my gratitude, practically bowing at his feet.

He smiled and said, "If I don't even have 30 minutes to help a new teammate, then I'm not managing my time very well, am I?"

That seemingly simple statement completely reframed my understanding of what it means to be "busy." Being busy shouldn't be a badge of honor, a sign of importance, or an excuse to be inaccessible. It's about prioritization. Sometimes, the most impactful thing you can do, the best use of your time, is to lend a helping hand, to share your knowledge, to mentor someone who's just starting their journey.

It's a lesson I've carried with me like a lucky charm throughout my career. It's a principle I strive to embody every single day. Because, ultimately, success isn't just about individual achievement; it's about the collective impact we have on those around us. It's about building each other up, about creating a culture of support and collaboration.

And, let's be honest, who knows? Maybe that person you help today will be the one to figure out how to save us from the exploding sun in 5 billion years. It's a long shot, but hey, a girl can dream.

So, there you have it. Three pieces of Google-infused wisdom that have stuck with me, shaping not just my work, but my entire approach to life. They're reminders to embrace the chaos, to keep things in perspective, and to prioritize people over process. And, you know, to maybe start working on that whole "saving humanity from solar annihilation" thing. Just in case.