I'd interpret the content of the article as the opposite of the title: "One (the only?) reason staffers didn't quit Google's car project before now? The company

I'd interpret the content of the article as the opposite of the title: "One (the only?) reason staffers didn't quit Google's car project before now? The company paid them so much" Multiple big players want to get into autonomous cars (and other vehicles -- this is the same space as military contracts for drones) and Google's executives were in total disarray. You'd think they'd lose out but instead they successfully hit some giant milestones by throwing enough cash at the problem. I mean, if the staffers had been paid poorly, wouldn't they have quit without waiting for that 16x bonus that only comes after meeting the division goals and then waiting four years?