Maybe, but here's an alternative interpretation. Google discovered a money spigot. At first the money spigot funded lots of smart people having fun. (But not making any more money.) Then, as tends to happen, the money spigot attracted parasites. Now the spigot is, if not running dry, at least not growing. Times get tough. Management wants to focus. And so everything is less fun than it was. And the playground culture, which was irrelevant when the spigot was gushing, is an impediment to change.

I think it's fair to say that Google's leadership is also not up to the job. But even if Satya Nadella were in charge, he'd still have to deal with the "grad school playground" aspect, which has as many negatives as positives from the vulgar point of view of making money.

More generally, I want to argue that the common HN meme, "management and politics ruins everything from the point of view of us heroic engineers", is self-serving and naive. Management and politics are how companies run. If you don't want to do that job, fine; if you want to grumble about its pathologies, fine and you'll often be right; but don't kid yourself that it can be avoided.