Sure, that's more reasonable. You're describing a match between business needs (the potential Android successor - quite an important business target) and a crit

Sure, that's more reasonable. You're describing a match between business needs (the potential Android successor - quite an important business target) and a critical mass of senior engineers eager to work on the product. I'm sure Google is aware that more interesting and ambitious projects do tend to capture and hold the interest of the most talented engineers, and that figures into their business decisions. What I strongly dispute is this notion that such a project would be subsidized solely for retention. Everyone knows about big Google projects that were shut down when their business case lost its appeal. I've also seen much smaller projects shut down when their value proposition was no longer deemed sufficient, even when their members were talented, passionate, and at real risk of leaving once their project shut down.