Every organization has one: Someone who may be brilliant in some ways, but can really stick his foot in his mouth. Sometimes, as with Richard M. Stallman and the Free Software Foundation, it can be the head of the organization. With Google, the latest case of foot in mouth disease goes to Steve Yegge, a Google engineer who declared that “Google+ is a prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms from the very highest levels of executive leadership.”
Yegge published his rant on Google+ for all to see. Later, Yegge claimed that he was so new to Google+ that he didn’t realize he had sent it to the world. Right there, is a red flag. He’s declaring Google+ to be a complete failure but he doesn’t even know how to use a Google+ circle? Clearly, he hasn’t a clue about the very system he’s declaring to be a failure.
That didn’t stop him from declaring that “The Google+ platform is a pathetic afterthought” and that “Google+ is a knee-jerk reaction, a study in short-term thinking, predicated on the incorrect notion that Facebook is successful because they built a great product.” He goes on and on like that for quite a while.