Mountain View is Googleville. Nearly all the buildings in the industrial part of the city are owned by them. You have to travel several miles from the Googleplex before you stop seeing Google-owned property. I don't know how any startup could set up there as it feels like there is zero office space left!
To be fair, those parts of South Bay are so not-dense you have to travel a mile to see anything or to get lunch.
This is also hyperbole. Mountain View is very dense compared to most of the suburban USA. There are numerous non-Google burrito, taco, Korean hot-pot, etc. places all with a few minutes’ walk of the Googleplex. I know because I’ve walked to them.
I dunno, define "few"? It's easily 20 minutes+ each way to get to a non-tech company building (maybe more if you're embedded in say Crittenden).
Pear Ave and the restaurants next to Sports Page are directly adjacent to buildings on the south end, but Maps does say you’re right about the stuff north on Rengstorff (about 20 minutes from building 42). I guess time flew and I didn’t mind the walk. Faster if you GBike it.
For non-Valley insiders: the above is hyperbole. For one thing, the massive Intuit campus is right next door to the Googleplex. For another thing, the industrial areas just across Highway 101 (a quarter mile from the ‘plex at most) are full of non-Google startups and midsized tech businesses, as well as junkyards and auto body shops and who knows what else.
Not to mention the enormous Shoreline Amphitheater literally right next door to Google!
American Century Investments... right across the street from the plex!