The size of a company is not a problem or you prefer to stay small. however bigger is more difficult to drive and control.

however i may be better to work on your own small project then contributing in a big one. But Google is not any company, many employees said that they felt a part of it.

The Polyvore office space with Friendfeed in the background:

farm3.static.flickr.com/2068/2 ...

[Courtesy of Sarah Cooper. flickr.com/photos/sarahcooper/ ...]

I guess that Google as a whole feels comfortable that employees leave and create startups doing online applications. Likely Google prepares to acquire them if any potential to fit in Google strategies.

Google is pretty solid now with huge machine farms, network channels and rich collective intelligence. It will be rare for Google to find any activity done by Ex-Googlers as threat.

Pasha came from Yahoo, not Google.

SDK, Pasha worked at both Google and Yahoo, my source says. At Yahoo, he worked on Yahoo Pipes, among others, and at Google, at Maps.

Yahoo Pipes really useful

And of course, as you know, friendfeed's API which you "had word of" is out there and switched on