(disclaimer: am googler)
Just like the thesis of the slime mold talk, the talk itself is a result of the slime mold and doesn't particularly represent any company-authoritative take on the situation.
It's turtles all the way down!
Just like the thesis of the slime mold talk, the talk itself is a result of the slime mold and doesn't particularly represent any company-authoritative take on the situation.
It's turtles all the way down!
I think they're also saying that the document is written from the POV of a single employee, and isn't the result of a full study/survey of the whole company
Slime molds are a type of organism that can expand quickly as each entity within the mold is independent. As a result, the mold as a whole can resist any one actor being removed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold
The analogy used by the talk is that a slime mold is the polar opposite of a top-down control hierarchy although I haven't read the whole talk (yet)
Anyway, the commenter is saying that Google (like a lot of tech companies) is comparable to a slime mold in that it's greatly distributed causing it to be closer to "messy and uncontrollable".
In the same breath however, the author of the document is part of said mold acting in their own capacity. By definition, they can't speak for the entire organisation (or necessarily even observe it) because well, it's a slime mold.
(Ref: Used to work at Google. No longer have to cover my ass.)