No he means the 'code' that runs Google in the business / HR sense is not version controlled and reviewed. So when it changes to something he disagrees with like the pillow purchase being disallowed he can't see or take part in the discussion that led to that change.

It sounds more like product/release control, which Google has been against since its incarnation.

> The code that runs Google itself is not publicly reviewed. There are no commit messages, no attribution and no version history. How can a Googler "think like an owner" when they're being told to follow inflexible rules even when they're so clearly against the company's best interest?

I would not be surprised. At one point, I interviewed with an adtech company where the people I interviewed with bragged about how only the founder-CEO knew the key part of the code and nothing got deployed without him.

Presumably, there is an inner cabal who has some access to something.

I doubt the search code started with version control. Then, when it became key to success, it was viewed as a risk.

I have zero inside knowledge, but I had theorized as much over the years. It is very likely my guesses are wrong.

Code that's not open source in google is controlled in a monorepo built on perforce, it's absolutely version controlled.

Would be interesting if someone who knows can explain. I'm interpreting it as there is a core/trusted team working on search that uses version control and does code reviews, but these are not visible to everyone else in the company. Given the constant battle against SEO, with 140k employees it makes sense that they would try to delay such knowledge from leaking. Odd that it sounds like the code itself is visible though.