Well, if you look at it... RageSpline guy (Juha Kiili) is working at Unity (on the same 2D stuff for 4.3), and NGUI folks (Michael Lyashenko & Philip Cosgrave)

Well, if you look at it... RageSpline guy (Juha Kiili) is working at Unity (on the same 2D stuff for 4.3), and NGUI folks (Michael Lyashenko & Philip Cosgrave) are working at Unity on the upcoming GUI system. That said, some people do not want work for any company; they just want to be "independent". And that's ok.