Numerous observers have shown that H.265 is better than VP9 on the quality/efficiency curve. But Google does not like to pay for real research and prefer to found alternative "free" copy-pasta codecs it controls.

http://iphome.hhi.de/marpe/download/Performance_HEVC_VP9_X26...

http://fr.slideshare.net/touradj_ebrahimi/spie2014-hev-cvsvp...

edit: facts will get you downvoted on HN. Nice.