‘Chronicle faces dissatisfaction among staff after being included in Google’

Security company Chronicle seems to be experiencing operational problems after it became part of Google a few months ago. The start-up that originated within parent company Alphabet is said to be struggling with dissatisfied management and employees.

Motherboard has spoken to a number of people within Chronicle, calling it an “implosion” due to the large number of disgruntled and leaving employees. Among others, CEO Stephen Gillett has been given a different role within Google, and co-founder Mike Wiacek has left. Another top executive, Will Robison, is also said to be planning to leave. A large number of ‘regular’ employees would also have left, and those who stayed behind would in many cases not know what to do.

Google has been asked for a response, but a spokesperson did not specifically comment on the coverage and denied that there are operational and staffing problems. Gillett also denied that Chronicle has problems.

According to Motherboard, the dissatisfaction is partly due to the fact that Chronicle was promised that it would remain independent from Google, and that employees were not informed of the new plans until the public announcement. In addition, the employment conditions would not be at the level of ‘regular’ Google employees and there is a lot of uncertainty about the future of Chronicle.

At the end of June, Google announced that it would make Chronicle part of the Cloud branch, after the start-up was founded in 2018. Although no specific plans were announced, Chronicle had to add a security component to Google’s cloud services.