[throwaway0071]

> How many of the core devs don't work for Google? How much of the overall project direction is decided by people who have nothing to do with Google?

This is why some developers are starting to hate open source. There's no technical excitement, it's all about community and governance and who has power and corporations and codes of conduct, etc... If not, you're going to fail. You get an army of experts scrutinizing your project and it's unexciting.