"Extremely wealthy from stock options that soared in value, 100 of Google's first 300 workers have quietly resigned to go to law school, help poor shopkeepers get loans or simply to live the good life. Although hardly a mass exodus, the numbers are adding up, scattering what some employees considered their second families."

One third gone after ten years in business. Even assuming most of these people joined a few years after Google started, that's a turnover rate of about 5%.

I wonder why the article doesn't mention Patri Friedman: http://www.reason.com/news/show/126198.html . Kiva is neat, but independent floating city-states are at least a little neater.

A common theme seems to be, google was great when it was small, now it's much like every other bureaucracy heavy big corp.

So it seem financial independence by itself would not have been enough to make them leave google.

(This article is a year and a half old now. "News"?)

It's what's interesting, not what's new.