By Holly Van Leuven
Publication Date: 2025-12-22 07:19:00
If Google Gemini catches up to OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the new year, it will probably be because a key exec responds directly to Reddit complaints.
Meet Josh
Josh Woodward started at Google as a product management intern in 2009. Now, he’s a VP. In a new profile from CNBC, insiders credit his leadership style with getting Google’s best AI products, like NotebookLM and the Nano Banana Pro image generator, out into the world and helping them succeed:
- Woodward created a system for employees to flag internal roadblocks to Google Labs team members, who actually resolve them.
- Externally, he introduced “Papercuts,” which allows users to directly report minor annoyances with Google’s AI products. Woodward frequently posts resolutions himself.
Respectfully, so what? An AI guy who gets stuff done is a BFD for Google. As The Economist put it, OpenAI beat Google to market with an AI chatbot due to the search giant’s “bureaucratic inertia” from being “a sprawling and stratified…
