Alex Russell, an engineer on the Chrome team, was kind enough to take up my question, with an answer which I think is too good not to share broadly, and which he was kind enough to let me share it.

FORBES: Chrome: A Google Eye View

An enthusiastic team player and a charismatic leader, Mr Mulally was also regarded by his colleagues as an engineers' engineer, since he based his decisions on hard data rather than vague hunches.

ECONOMIST: Face value

As a next step, Mr. Heuken always assembles a team that includes an architect, landscape architect and engineer.

WSJ: Creating: Peter Heuken, Playground Designer

His economics team, headed by Jorge Giordani, an electrical engineer and development planner, is widely seen as unimpressive, though it claims to have been austere.

ECONOMIST: Chavez’s muddled new world | The

All that changed when he set up shop in Menlo Park, New Jersey, and cobbled together a team that included, among others, a German glassblower, an African American engineer, a Swiss watchmaker, an American mathematician, and a British textile machinist.

FORBES: Thoreau's Idea Hunt, and Ours

In March 2011, Mike Hearn, a Google engineer, released an open source java client for bitcoin called BitcoinJ so obviously the protocol did not go unnoticed at Team Google.

FORBES: Virtual Currencies and Roach Motels