Can the "Fathers of the Internet" offer a financial incentive or even a stipend to nerds that want to work on these projects? I was reading a book a while ago

Can the "Fathers of the Internet" offer a financial incentive or even a stipend to nerds that want to work on these projects? I was reading a book a while ago on peer-to-peer technologies written some years ago and there was a chapter by a very talented, well-known programmer. Today, like Cerf, he's on the Google payroll. Needlesss to say he will not be working diligently on releasing finished projects that help to decentralize the web.