> Every bit of innovation in the AI space today originated at Google. The company poured probably tens of billions into its Brain division, sponsored and made public every bit of research, and pretty much created the field of modern AI. So what was the outcome? When the employees realized they had struck gold they figured they'd rather go join startups or found their own companies instead, because regardless of the amount of success they achieved at Google they would never 1000x the share price or be the ones calling the shots.

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.

> If as an employee you are nostalgic about the "culture" in the early days of such a company then you should realize that it is not coming back, just like the carefree days of your own childhood aren't coming back. Quit and join a smaller company instead.

Couldn't agree more. Our brand of capitalism isn't set up to allow for such corporate-culture time travel.