Congrats to Joshua. One of the more amazing things early on at digg was how open and willing he was to share advice and knowledge with what must have looked like a competitor.
Interestingly, Google was both least aggressive and least attractive to Schachter. When he'd interviewed for a job there, the company had told him, "We don't need idea guys--we've got plenty of them. We just need developers." Now Google was wracked by internal debate over the value of Del.icio.us. Schachter says, "They came in and said, 'Well, maybe we're kinda sorta interested,' but there was no 'What's the plan? What are you thinking about? Where do you want to take this?'"
Freedom would be much easier to gain if you go in with a reputation. In comparison, a startup probably offers a lot more freedom to someone smart, but lacking the credentialing of a previous start-up success.
And anyways, freedom for its own sake is not really useful. Some ideas are complex enough to require a team of talented individuals and perhaps more resources than what a startup can muster in its initial stages.
Google probably has a few great and interesting projects that he interested in, and the lost opportunity of making millions through a sale or an IPO might matter less to someone who has already trekked that trail.
Completely agree. Some of the more interesting research goes on in places like Watson Research and IBM Almaden. You need that kind of infrastructure and backing for all kinds of audacious projects.
Just because you're working for a big company doesn't mean you don't have considerable freedom. Researchers at Google are given quite a lot of free reign, for example -- I doubt Shacter will be a "corporate bitch".
A company like Google still has plenty of interesting projects he could work on (without having to worry about business operations tasks and funding). I'd also imagine del.icio.us took care of the "make bunch of money to never have to worry about financial security" side of things too.
