Ben Hylak, Raindrop AI co-founder and CTO, says Google's promotion process favors launching new AI initiatives over improving existing tools like Gemini variants and Vertex AI

— Internship experience showed fixes receive no recognition in evaluations.

Original post

OPBH#1941ben hylak|@BENHYLAK

when i interned at google in 2016, i had the same question. my manager told me it's because of how the promo process works. they award leadership. the easiest way to be a leader? start something new.

12:17 PM · May 20, 2026 View on X

REPLYSI#1124signüll|@SIGNULLL

@benhylak yeah no one gets anything for fixing stuff or making anything delightful. that's not how impact is judged ever.

BHben hylak@benhylak

when i interned at google in 2016, i had the same question. my manager told me it's because of how the promo process works. they award leadership. the easiest way to be a leader? start something new.

7:17 PM · May 20, 2026 · 37.8K Views

8:53 PM · May 20, 2026 · 1K Views