I have an additional thing which is even more speculative. The thing that Google's research division is most iconically known for is deep RL. And personally, I believe we're not even close to seeing the last of what deep RL can do. My conspiracy theory is that the top level of Google management basically shut down the AlphaStar project because they didn't want to enter the industries that it would be most useful for, like finance and military tech. I think that history will judge that Google in 2017 were sitting on the 2 most profitable technologies of the decade, and failed to exploit either of them