It's better than the situation at most companies I have been at: It's basically the personal gain trumps all, but without the actual results. You just have a bunch of populists that talk up a good game, but when it comes time to execute or actually launch something, they are the last person you really want at the helm, but because they have built up a reputation with the higher ups, they are impossible to displace.

From my perspective, this appears to be the situation of most "Health IT" corps and VP of Engineering and above. I've since "sold out" and moved to a digital marketing firm, but in many ways the work here is much more honest than what happened at places I worked at in the name of "health"

I think that's a bit of an unfair way to characterize what's going on here. In fact, it's Google's values (as expressed through internal incentives) that govern this process. If the company wanted people to, say, make X better rather than killing it and launching a completely new X, all it would have to do is reward that rather than setting up a system that punishes it through reduced career growth.