[nobody31415]

Twas ever thus. Ben Rich was Kelly Johnson's assistant at the original Lockheed Skunkworks (creator of the U2, SR71, etc) - he was regularly approached to leave and create skunkworks for every other aerospace company.

As soon as he talked to them they enthused about the Skunkworks setup and how their version would be better since it would be in the main plant, with it's own set of VPs to supervise it and be properly intergrated into the main business etc.

ps. Read his biography http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/d... if you think any of this Silicon Valley stuff is new