It is prudent to err the side of giving the benefit of the doubt to the entity with relatively less power. I see no reason to instinctively jump to Google's defense here, they are more than capable of defending themselves.

The whole team left, so it doesn't seem like the author was a snowflake in this case.

Though looking at the timelines, the team left or had been moved around after a two year period. So it wasn't necessarily an abrupt change.