I noticed that too. One explanation could be that many really smart people understand that "the game" is inherently stupid/degrading/unimportant and would rather not waste their intelligence and lives fighting other people to "win" it. Maybe they want to further human understanding in peace and not be a tall poppy that gets cut down all the time[1]
Also all the old Bell Labs people who're now at Google. I'm sure Rob Pike could get more money than he does at Google if he wanted to go into the startup game, but he isn't interested.
Maybe not.