I'm not seeing a good reason to assume these people were any better at business requirements etc - if only because Google is going to be even less help with tho

I'm not seeing a good reason to assume these people were any better at business requirements etc - if only because Google is going to be even less help with those. We've had this before on HN. Student and work culture is changing from "Work it out for yourself because you're a skilled professional who understands how to solve real problems" to "Copy it from someone else without understanding anything about it because that's what you did to get your expensive degree." It's not so much Google programming as Lego programming. And it's a terrible way to approach any kind of engineering, at any level. Of course it's fine to import good existing solutions if you know what you're doing with them. But Lego programming is not that.