In my frank opinion, Sundar is the worst performing of the FAANG leaders. He reminds me of Ballmer's flat growth, but perhaps much worse - we'll know the true scope of the damage soon.
His leadership has put Google's single biggest revenue stream in the cross hairs of competitors, and Sundar should have seen it coming. He's done nothing to secure Google's future or broaden the company's revenue sources.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment is that Google has been unable to move the needle on cloud. This despite the fact that Google had the best in the business once upon a time.
There's no innovation out of this company - only vanity projects, product cancellations, and in-fighting. Google's sparkle is decades in the rear view mirror. I'd describe them as the Walmart of computing, but even Walmart is formidable. Google is paper thin.
Microsoft's Nadella, by contrast, is a phenom. Developers (Github, VSCode), Cloud, and B2B (Office, LinkedIn) are kicking ass. I don't even think about their consumer-facing stuff much anymore, because the rest of their offerings are so good. Their choice to invest in OpenAI is really paying off too.
Google is fat. Fat, lethargic, and dumb. It's not somewhere worth working at until they axe the incumbent leadership. Their stock option-based comp is going to take a rough tumble, especially if they don't show a willingness to reverse course immediately.
To have this "surprise" freak-out catch them off guard? To bring in the old leadership so publicly?