[quanticle]

Why? Look at it from an organizational perspective. If the code can only be understood by one person, then that person leaves, you have a piece of code that cannot be maintained or modified without potentially months of effort. Moreover, because it's a particular algorithm, this effort cannot be shortened or distributed across multiple developers. I would argue that whatever efficiency gain Google would get is totally outweighed by the risks of the developer leaving.

[tunesmith]

Just simply because the outcome was much less than the ideal outcome. Yes, accepting the reality that no one else could understand his output (assuming the output was correct), then that organizational outcome was the correct one. But it's a tragedy (again, assuming this guy was correct) that his knowledge couldn't be taken advantage of. I just think it would be really tough to feel the realization of being so powerful that you you are impotent.