That’s an interesting modern perspective.
I would say though that you’re both correct. Satya came in 2014 and during the last 11 years I would say that the majority of that is as the GP described.
I’m not sure when what you are describing became the outside perspective, but I suspect somewhere around 2019-2022, when Google lost a very large amount of its shine as the former Oracle Execs started to take over fully.