For your probabilities, you describe many issues that aren't big issues at Google. Phishing credentials is mitigated by mandatory FIDO tokens, binary whitelisting heavily reduces installs of malware, security policy isn't needed on these desktops (really just needed for mobile devices incl laptops).
I just explained why it doesn’t matter that “most” people can manage their OS, that’s because Google has thousands of Linux users. If 1% of Google developers make a critical mistake that could be a hundred workstations or more.
On top of that, I still disagree. Many developers I’ve met are not that good at using the OS.
Remember that writing applications is a completely separate skill. You can learn to code completely separate from learning anything else about the computer. I had a college professor that taught C on a chalkboard, in this millennium.
Google’s own developer interviews are very CS and algorithm heavy and to my knowledge never test your abilities with OS management.
When you say “really just needed for mobile devices including laptops” that’s basically all devices isn’t it? You’d have to be incredibly specialized to need or prefer a desktop workstation.
I haven’t even brought up compliance controls and certifications yet, either. If you’re SOC 2 or HIPAA compliant you have to manage workstations to disable functionality and restrict system preferences. For example, there are typically restrictions on USB port data transmission and idle screen lock delay time.
No disrespect to you but this is a really naive take on how IT management works.
For one thing, not everyone at Google is an OS expert. There are people working for Google in marketing, sales, support, data science, graphic design, hardware design, and other fields where you can't depend on every person to "do the right thing" when it comes to "managing their own OS."
And even if they can, is that where you want them spending their time? Manually managing their OS? Don't you want them to do the job they were hired to do instead? Their computer is a work tool, not tinkertown.
Basically, the opposite of what you're saying is true: because 100,000 people work at Google, each person represents another way to potentially mess something up and cause problems for the whole company.
Assign each employee with probabilities:
- Probability of falling for a phishing scam
- Probability of installing malware
- Probability of an employee missing an announcement regarding OS/security policy
- Probability of an employee opening a support ticket with IT
These probabilities are very low for people who are computer-savvy, educated, very highly qualified people. The thing is, all you have to do is multiply those probabilities by 100,000 and now you've got a big problem.
It's much easier to run with zero IT automation if you've only got 10 people in your company and they all know each other.