That seems like an overly negative caricature of Google’s corporate culture, and unlikely to be the case here, given the stakes and enormous investments in AI.
It’s more likely what the grandparent was saying, I’m reminded of Steve Yegge’s rant from 15 years ago and it seems like not a lot has changed.
The results are indistinguishable. Massive organisations tend towards self aggrandivizing work.
At some point, the metrics for delivering to customers runs counter to what the bureaucracy was building itself to actually deliver: jobs.
"The purpose of a system is what it does"
"overly"? surely not... maybe in the sense that it isn't "underly", but there are much more uncharitable caricatures of Google's corporate culture that I would freely admit than that.