My question: Why didn't you work with your management to take a sabbatical leave?
One of the benefits of the major corporations is that they have policies in place for leaves of absence. Then you would've gotten the best of both worlds: 1) a fall-back plan if you fail to monetize in your venture 2) a rigid time-period where you need to finish your venture (and not just be open ended on figuring out your life)
I did something very similar, after a longer period of time (9+ years) in the corporate world. I needed that time to germinate my technical ability and understand my relevant skillset. For me, it was reading "Hackers and Painters" rather than the Princeton article you linked that got me to pursue my independent career.
She'd only been there for 2 years. Sabbaticals in most institutions are for people with 5+ year tenures.
In a fast-growing company like Google that's still hiring, having a good performance record and keeping in touch with coworkers is practically as good as having a sabbatical, anyway. If she were to reapply to Google and her resume said "Google: 2008-2010" and her old performance reviews were good and she had good code leftover in the version history, do you think Google would turn her down? I know of a bunch of people that left Google for startups or FaceBook or other companies and then returned, and it's basically as if they never left (except that for legal reasons, Google can't preserve their old option grant and has to start fresh with stock compensation).
One of the benefits of the major corporations is that they have policies in place for leaves of absence. Then you would've gotten the best of both worlds: 1) a fall-back plan if you fail to monetize in your venture 2) a rigid time-period where you need to finish your venture (and not just be open ended on figuring out your life)
I did something very similar, after a longer period of time (9+ years) in the corporate world. I needed that time to germinate my technical ability and understand my relevant skillset. For me, it was reading "Hackers and Painters" rather than the Princeton article you linked that got me to pursue my independent career.