Comment by dekhn

Noam is pre-IPO google with extensive work done on the most important infrastructure in the company's history; likely he has large monetary reserves as well as a pool of investors more than happy to give him money simply to continue doing his research, regardless of future revenue. You can assume that in returning to google, he will get some base pay which will be prodigious, but also extensive pay in the form of bonuses and stock. From what I know of him, the real motivation is to get more access to large TPUs.