Rob Pike is not a 'Googler' by birth or fame or identity. He was at Bell Labs and was on the team that created Unix, led the team creating Plan 9, co-created UTF-8, and did a bunch more - all long before Google existed. He was a legend before he deigned to join them and lend them his credibility.
I was gonna say! Working at Bell Labs is a LOT more prestigious (and less humiliating) than working for Google, an advertising company.
It's like the old joke from Mad Magazine:
The Beatles? Weren't they Paul McCartney's backup band before Wings?
In fairness, was Bell Labs, part of (or funded by) AT&T, a phone monopoly, any less corporate than Google's home for genius engineers?
Telephony is much more important to society than advertisement.
I know where they make money, but calling them an advertising company is just a jab. Ha ha, but that doesn't describe Google, like them or not.
I wonder where AT&T made profits and where, like any business, they broke even or had loss leaders. IIRC consumer telephone service was not profitable.
Eh, and it was arguably a mistake to let him force Go on the rest of the organisation by way of starpower.
"force" seems a bit strong, as I remember it.
Yeah, I remember it being a fourth option alongside the others but I quit just before Google lost its serifs and its soul