As well I met them and it wasn't a pleasant experience. It was a decade ago around the same time Sonos met with them and they did similar to Sonos. Though Sonos recently won their case against them https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/6/22871121/sonos-google-pate....
I think it's more like the Yahoo of yesterday? They made a few key products and then... nothing... for decades, while sponsoring deals everywhere to try to maintain their monopoly.
They basically only created a better search engine which that possibly could have been stolen too. I mean Facebook was stolen as well and the public doesn't care. I'm sure the public doesn't care that 100s to 1000s of innovators have been ripped off by Google as they just see them as not the winners. Yet a lot of the winners are the no talent thieves and those who throw all their morals to win at all cost.
I've talked about my experience (click thru my 1st link above ...my comment is the top of that thread as I met with that same R&D team, Google ATAP the MIT student did and Im betting so did Sonos who actually worked with Google) to warn those if and when Google comes knocking demand money deposited in your bank before taking a meeting! Blow their stardust back in their face and demand money!
Reminds me of something they mentioned on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Billion_Dollar_Code series: Google asking small startups for a sales offer, copying the startup instead, and using the offer as a shield against future lawsuits (look, they only thought it was worth X)
As for Oz, what an incredible story.