Yeah, maybe, but the coders able to "combine lots of AI discoveries done by others", as well as those who make those discoveries, are likely to work for Google/

Yeah, maybe, but the coders able to "combine lots of AI discoveries done by others", as well as those who make those discoveries, are likely to work for Google/FB/MS/IBM/Apple/Amazon/etc already (or want to work there). A group like OpenAI also has a good chance to make a breakthrough, but you can hardly call them "a team of coders in a basement". It's unlikely that any a single company (even a large one) will have any significant advantage, because the research everyone does is highly public (everyone tries to publish asap). The research right now is at the stage where people are still looking which way to go, so as soon as someone stumbles upon a promising direction, everyone will jump on it (e.g. AlexNet success in 2012).