I've spent time both in Athens and in Istanbul. Neither of them are European nowadays. Unorganized dirty jungles... Istanbul has a difference though, it's an unorganized mega jungle.
I think Erdogan sees China as a model for the future, as a provider of cheap labor. So, Turkey doesn't need to intellectually integrate with the rest of the world.
Obama is a big time supporter of Erdogan. During gezipark protests, he even silenced his embassador after his pro-democratic statements -- they deleted the public tweets, etc.
US government is one of the few reasons that Erdogan's regime is still illegitimate, because the opposition against them is minimal in the Western media.
Turks doesn't have fanaticism towards domestic good. It's a central communication channel that is known to run by people who seems to be fair, them being American is obviously not relevant to them.
Istanbul is modern? Sorry but Istanbul is a shithole when compared to some of the other Turkish western coast cities. What makes it interesting in the global scale is the level of its diversity.
The campaign is there to provide insights what's going on in Turkey, it's not questioning the average income increase, China is one the greatest economical powers of the world, so what? It doesnt mean people are free and treated right.
This campaign is there for supporting the most basic human right: being heard.
As a side note, the protests were never not influenced by a political party at all. I personally know several AKP voters, who are on the street now.
Acquisitions are not everyday's issues, usually beyond L6 and above comments, but sometimes it'll only visible to execs. But certain topics such as "What about Google+ being added to everything?" are actively in discussion.
Disclaimer: I have never worked with Neal Mohan and not familiar with his output. But, product decisions are taken collectively and by relying on data. Anything beyond that doesn't fit Google's culture and internally you'd have a bad time to find engineers that wants to work for you. In order to be in the genius status at Google, you have be a true inventor. We're more or less capable people and giving an impression that Google's core business is run by some 500-600 slides is ridiculous.
I work for Google and don't think anyone alone can bring this amount of value alone, knowing well that every decision is taken very collectively. There are some many in this article that doesn't fit Google's work culture.