Two months ago I was fired by Google for creating the Google...
Justin Poehnelt@JPoehnelt
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Jun 23, 2026
~1 min read
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Two months ago I was fired by Google for creating the Google Workspace CLI. It went viral, hit #1 on Hacker News, gained thousands of GitHub stars and many thousands of actual users in just a couple days.
It was an incredible, confusing journey, from directors and leaders asking what they could learn from the tool to getting grilled by legal about why the Google logo and brand colors are on the Google Workspace GitHub code repositories.
I think the cause was that Workspace and certain leaders (and projects) were afraid of being disrupted. But the fear wasn't specific to my CLI, it was a broader fear in what agents meant for Workspace. Either way, the irony of my termination was the announcement at Google Cloud Next two days before I was fired that an official Workspace CLI was coming.
I want this out there because it is easier for me to explain my story and it is an experience I want to fully own. It's also part of my healing.
Nearly 7 years at Google was an incredible opportunity for me and I was fortunate to have wonderful teammates and a manager that fully supported me through these last few months. Thank you.
It was an incredible, confusing journey, from directors and leaders asking what they could learn from the tool to getting grilled by legal about why the Google logo and brand colors are on the Google Workspace GitHub code repositories.
I think the cause was that Workspace and certain leaders (and projects) were afraid of being disrupted. But the fear wasn't specific to my CLI, it was a broader fear in what agents meant for Workspace. Either way, the irony of my termination was the announcement at Google Cloud Next two days before I was fired that an official Workspace CLI was coming.
I want this out there because it is easier for me to explain my story and it is an experience I want to fully own. It's also part of my healing.
Nearly 7 years at Google was an incredible opportunity for me and I was fortunate to have wonderful teammates and a manager that fully supported me through these last few months. Thank you.
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Some references for the curious, including the "Tweet that got me fired" as I refer to it!
github.com/googleworkspac…
justin.poehnelt.com/posts/rewrite-…
x.com/addyosmani/sta…
github.com/googleworkspac…
justin.poehnelt.com/posts/rewrite-…
x.com/addyosmani/sta…
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Thank you to all the open source contributors to the project, it made for an exciting week!
