[mseebach]

Hired gun = mercenary. Geneva convention via Wikipedia:

2. A mercenary is any person who:

(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;

Ignoring the negative connotations of being a mercenary, the fact that he is portrayed as being motivated by conquering google, rather than a brilliant engineer looking to make a difference in the search space, makes him a hired gun by that definition.

Edit: Not completely sure this argument is watertight, but leaving it in for arguments' sake.