Seems Google treats its employees like they treat their customers. My experience with Google as a customer is just as frustrating (have had corporate accounts locked out with no avenue for recourse except sending emails over weeks, to simply be denied again because their bots think I'm doing something strange, and products my company was relying on and using simply stop being supported one day).
I stopped using or supporting Google related products, and declined moving forwards on an interview offer as a result. This story just reinforces this view.
It's all correct, though they do pay good money. Otherwise it's just a large, messy organisation where blame deflection is everyone's basic survival strategy. This is for example why he got such cryptic messages all the way through, nobody wanted to tell him that things are actually shit and unlikely to result in an employment before their boss' boss' boss announces that this is the case.
When my wife was looking for a VP level position at a tech company last year, Google's interview process was by far the most cumbersome and their offer was the lowest she got by a sizeable amount. When she mentioned this to them, they said she could begin the process all over again to see if she could maybe get more. She thanked them for their time and then accepted one of the reasonable offers she got.
I stopped using or supporting Google related products, and declined moving forwards on an interview offer as a result. This story just reinforces this view.