Is Google Too Smart For Its Own Good?

An anonymous reader writes in with a piece in Fortune speculating on what's next for Google. The writer believes that a supersaturated solution of very smart people, plus stock that may have run out of upside, will yield what he calls Son of Google — a large wave of innovative companies created by Google graduates. And a Google less intent on hiring, and less able to hire, the very smartest people around. Could happen.

That's an interesting idea

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Kind of how Failchild Semiconductor [wikipedia.org] was the wellspring for many of todays semiconductor companies? This graphic (PDF warning) was the best thing I could find. [businessweek.com]

Re:Google's success.

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't just "happen to be at home". Bill Gates' mum (!) set up a meeting for little Billy boy.

It kind of pisses me off when Bill Gates is presented as some sort of rags-to-riches success story. He had some starting-post advantages, folks.
That said, I don't really begrudge him his wealth - society was stupid enough to allow copyright and patent monopoly law (note that Bill Gates was hanging around washington when that was being decided - believe it or not, it wasn't until 1983 that binding U.S. precedent for software being copyrightABLE was actually set), he just acted 100% rationally to maximise his personal gain using the law as a tool.

But damnit, if you convict an entity of being an abusive monopoly, for god's sake stop handing them monopolies on a plate! The only punishment microsoft should have had for its offences was for its copyrights and patents to be placed in the public domain. The fines and such are meaningless - look at the EU - Microsoft basically paying "fines" (bribes) to the EU Commission while the EU Commission works on introducing software patents for microsoft's benefit.