> And that's a pretty strong indictment of Google! Googlers who worked on this research and technology believed that they'd have a better chance of doing something life-changing and making some bank outside of Google! While that isn't all that uncommon, it's also something Google could have taken steps to prevent. Better culture, better compensation. It's a huge risk to strike out on your own with something like this; Google could have made it both safer and more lucrative (or at least lucrative enough) to stay. But they didn't.

For a while Microsoft was infamous for having talented engineers leave, found a startup, and then MS acquiring that startup for a lot of money.

It was, in hindsight, a really great system that worked out well for everyone involved.