I think some of this is par for the course for a geek-run successful technology company. Back in the late 80's and early 90's when programmers still controlled Autodesk it was involved in projects like Xanadu, AMIX and even created the Cyberspace Developers Kit. All of these were very cool projects but far from the core revenue generating product AutoCAD. If Google follows the trajectory of other major tech companies there will one day be a down quarter, Wall Street will scream bloody murder and management will release a memo about "refocusing the company on it core competencies." And on that day you really want to be working on AdWords where the money is and not on the cool projects.