More broadly, does success in academia usually translate to delivering business value? Are these companies betting on these researchers to come up with the next great DL architecture?
So if you define top talent to be research lab or publication success I think that top talent will always be attractive corporate RD, assuming there's a match in the research area. I don't really know how these companies are evaluating their RD, so delivering business value is another question.
edit: thinking about your question more-as an AI person I think the business logic behind hiring AI research talent if you are FAANG is not that they are going to deliver much business value in the next five years but they may deliver astronomical returns in the next 25 years. when you have the financial strength of google hiring these people is not a very large risk.
edit: I'm an ML grad student.
They don't want to support Siri and iMessage on non-apple devices. Those are free services, why would they give them away without requiring you to buy their devices?
That was Google's fault, and look at how EU repeatedly punishes them for trying to not be Apple.
