Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Google, is sworn in during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A Google sign is seen during the China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference in Shanghai, China August 3, 2018. Aly Song | Reuters

A long, messy laundry list of issues

President Donald Trump talks to the media on the South Lawn of the White House, December 8, 2018. Yuri Gripas | Reuters

Google employees hold signs at the protest in Mountain View, California. Jillian D'Onfro | CNBC

The protest is coming from inside the 'Plex

Throughout all of Google's troubles, the most persistent narrative was the surge of employee activism. Through petitions, open letters, resignations, and major protests, workers have expressed their dissatisfaction with the company's business contracts, future plans, and internal policies. Some employees say they're disenchanted with the company's playbook of lukewarm responses. The Google worker who spoke at the shareholder meeting, engineer Irene Knapp, says that management has continued to exhibit deliberate "avoid-and-evade" tactics rather than driving meaningful change. "I would say that communication from Sundar and his team around diversity concerns over the past year has generally been structured in ways that minimize the opportunity employees have to respond or give input," Knapp says. "This feels like a leadership vacuum to many employees, because it's not possible to address the concerns many of us have without real, open communication." Meanwhile, the organizers of the Google walkouts are also pushing management to be clearer and do more: Although Pichai and his team conceded to some of their demands, it didn't "address the core issues of inequity, discrimination, and abuse of power." "While there is much work to do, we are entering 2019 hopeful," members of the core organizing group around the walkouts told CNBC. "Collective action and solidarity among workers is making change where slide decks and entreaties have not."

Google employees hold signs during a walkout to protest how the tech giant handled sexual misconduct in Mountain View, California, U.S., on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. Michael Short | Bloomberg | Getty Images

It could be worse — just ask Mark Zuckerburg

While Google and Pichai's responses may not have pleased everyone, at least they look good in comparison to its Silicon Valley rival. "Google did better than Facebook this year," says Pivotal analyst Brian Weiser. "Many of the same issues that Facebook faced are issues for Google as well, but the primary distinction is that Google is a better-run company so it just didn't have the same level of focus." That sentiment hasn't been lost on employees. One worker on the advertising side told CNBC that their manager jokes that any time it seems like an issue could blow up, Facebook does something worse. Pichai's demeanor has helped. "I think he brings emotional intelligence to a Valley that has very little of it," says Eric Schiffer, chairman of consulting firm Reputation Management. "Employees that I talk to also have empathy for the position that he's in, which is having to be a coalition-builder between employees and shareholders, whose interests don't align in all cases and at times have harrowingly different priorities." Google's renewed interest in China is an example. Pichai has described it as too big a market to ignore, but its plans for censored search there counter the company's previous decision to withdraw from the country, which was couched in moral terms. Threading that needle requires the kind of deft touch — tactfulness, if you will — that Pichai has made his signature. However, this tactfulness could also be seen as wishy-washiness. As one former Google executive summed it up, Pichai is well-balanced leader who likes to find compromises. But that can mean that instead of solving problems quickly and decisively, he and the rest of Google's leadership are letting them build and fester. While Google has slipped in the rankings of desirable places to work, all its missteps and scandals haven't caused a blip in its financials. Powering the Internet's most extensive and essential network of advertising platforms pays off: Alphabet earned $9.2 billion in profits last quarter, up 37 percent from a year ago. As Google's strained year winds down, it seems like Pichai's biggest challenges for next year, too, will not be making shareholders happy, but appeasing users, regulators, and employees.