Google homepage logos are seen on a wall at the Google campus near Venice Beach, in Los Angeles, California January 13, 2012.
Google homepage logos are seen on a wall at the Google campus near Venice Beach, in Los Angeles, California January 13, 2012. Reuters

James Whittaker, a Microsoft executive who recently left Google after about three years, posted his Why I Left Google tell-all on a Microsoft blog a day before Greg Smith had his scathing Goldman Sachs op-ed published in the New York Times. The Smith op-ed has taken the Internet and news world by storm in the first 24 hours since being posted. A London based executive director for the investment banking giant Goldman Sachs, Smith fired off a searing report March 14 on the company's toxic and destructive (his words) culture of deliberately misguiding clients.

But, the day before that, Whittaker, who had worked at Microsoft before joining Google in 2009, published a very similar style report about his reasons for leaving. In this case, it wasn't about Google ripping people off, but instead becoming so caught up in making Google+ the center of Google's world, that nothing else seemed to matter. One big difference here is Smith hasn't yet gone to work for a competing bank. He filed his op-ed the day he left. Whittaker has been back at Microsoft for a few weeks, and the fact it was posted on a company blog rather than his own does raise an eyebrow.

Still, the similarities are noteworthy if for no other reason that the fallout from Smith's letter has been so swift and damaging to Goldman Sachs. The company has reportedly lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the wake of Smith's letter. Many across the Internet have been crowing about Google's recent privacy policy changes, and the fact Google+ has not caught on like the company may have hoped will surely leave people wondering what kind of fallout might be in store for Google.

Furthermore, if Google really has changed its attitude toward search, and judging by the recent changes, it's possible, will people pile onto the Google backlash even more than they already have? Tell us in the comments if you think Whittaker was being honest in his blob post or if you think it's just hyperbole.

Microsoft The New York Times Goldman sachs New York