"Why not follow one of these paths curated by university computer science faculty and Google engineers?"
The fact that Google equates their engineers with university faculty is either incredibly delusional or arrogant.
The fact that Google equates their engineers with university faculty is either incredibly delusional or arrogant.
(Fei-Fei Li recently left, as a notable example, and I can name 3-4 profs from my alma mater who are also employed at Google in various capacities)