Speaking as an insider, I call BS on this story. I've seen a couple of cases where a departing employee left before their notice period was up. It is not common, certainly not policy and not limited to those leaving for Google. Most often, the employee was winding down the old project anyway and was anxious to get started on the new gig. Usually when someone gives notice in the middle of a project, the team is motivated to keep him or her on as long as possible, to suck the last drop of contribution possible. You guyz should be ashamed for letting your rabid (and increasingly quaint) anti-MS bias trick you into accepting the premise of this story without confirmation. What's /. if not the hotbed of the passionate rationalist? Let me offer an alternative view: that the Seattle tech scene containing MSFT, GOOG, AMZN as anchors and a fair number of smaller companies is evolving into a Silicon Valley society: easy, frequent mixing, good communications among the players and all parties very motivated to preserve their good reputation, well knowing that they will be seeing each other again.