My name is cleared.

This came from a very high-ranking person at Google, earlier today. It is posted here with the author’s permission.

Dear Michael,

Your continuing outspokenness, with regard to your time at Google, has come to my attention. After reading over your record in detail, I and many others on the senior leadership team agree that you were poorly managed and inaccurately reviewed. Your performance was strong given the short time you were here, and you showed very high potential for growth.

We find it regrettable that you left Google. Having reviewed your history, we want to impress upon you that we see your experiences as unjust and certainly not reflective on you in any negative way but, additionally, extremely unusual for Google. We hope that you will also see it this way, and not continue to regard it as reflecting any underlying pattern at Google. Had you been under different supervision, we believe that you would have been very successful here. You are clearly a driven, passionate, and talented technologist.

We wish for every person we hire to have a productive and successful career here, and of all the companies where I have worked, Google does the best job of achieving this. However, perfection in management is impossible for any company, especially given our size and the fast-paced nature of technology in general.

We wish you the best of success in your career going forward.

Sincerely,

[Googler]

My name is cleared.

I’m done criticizing Google. On the whole, Google is a great technology company in many ways, and has plenty of exceptional people with whom it was a privilege to work.

It’s time to move on. Back to building.