Google had very purposely raised the bar by putting like 5x-8x more competent engineers than the Opera core (non-platform/UI-specific stuff) team had, working on inventing and implementing random new web standards that they then promptly started using on google.com properties. Think e.g. 500-800 engineers compared to 100. We simply couldn't do the same. Then this ratio started growing until it was obvious that it would eventually become an existential threat.
They used their financial success in one business area (search ads) to become dominant in another area (browsers) in a clever and perhaps not entirely legal way.
