I can imagine that their experience in the program shaped the company's ethos, which emphasized technical expertise and de-emphasized immediate commercial returns, which has turned out to be a pretty profitable approach.
That's not just the story behind Google, it's the story of the Internet itself. Folks seem to forget that pretty much the entirety of the research that created the Internet came from taxpayer-dollars, and was developed in scientific, DoD, governmental, and research environments. Of course, the question that never gets asked is, if the taxpayers paid for it, why do we allow corporations and private individuals to get rich off of it? Oops, there I go, bringing up politics and larger issues of power again: Net Loss: Internet Prophets, Private Profits, and the Costs to Community By Nathan Newman http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0271022051/ Net Loss: Government, Technology and the Political Economy of Community in the Age of the Internet http://www.nathannewman.org/diss/ Art McGee Principal Consultant Virtual Identity Communications+Media+Technology 1-510-967-9381 artmcgee@cyberspace.org "On the Internet, no one can tell that you're a dog, and that's a good thing, 'cause if they could, they would most likely beat you to death." ---Art McGee "USENET: alt.flame.niggers" AfroAm-L Mailing List April 17, 2004