I think this George Bernard Shaw quote pretty much explains the guy.
Is he naive or is Google overreaching? Going to be interesting watching this one play out.
I suspect, access of "14,000 highly confidential and proprietary files shortly before his resignation" will play a major role in swaying the deciders. Experience tells us that not all of those 14k were critical, what if it had be 1 or 2 critical design docs? In a different or future case, we may see that happen. Corps have incentive to reduce competitors, but now may start recognizing the potential leverage they have - "Our network logs show Joe accessed our main design doc 1 week before he left for company doing similar work!".
They were also very specific in the legal documents about how he "covered his tracks", I'd recommend reading it rather than the cliff notes version linked here.