Almost certainly not, indeed. But then, if you ran a business, that's almost precisely what you'd do. It's completely rational. The hoi polloi need to be filte

Almost certainly not, indeed. But then, if you ran a business, that's almost precisely what you'd do. It's completely rational. The hoi polloi need to be filtered aggressively, most companies need to select for hunger, etc. By contrast, you might as well give a big name an honorary position if you can afford it. If they do useful stuff - bonus. Hell, if I owned a company the size of Google, I'd give Guido some money just because I could.