Agreed. Some people choose to leave Google to start their own companies. Some people choose to stay in the situation they have at Google. Choice is generally a good thing.

Yeah but out of the $1.2 million of value that his labour is creating, he's only getting around 10% (based on average salaries at Google).

Are the reduced risk and added infrastructure really worth Google's 90% cut?

Would you be able to make that $120K (which seems low to me, actually) elsewhere?

That's the important comparison - it's quite possible for you to keep 100% of the value you create, but only create $60-70K/year of value. Several of my college friends (not in the valley) are in that position.

You need to deduct employment expenses from that, which is why the article uses the $400k number.