It would be great if Google/Alphabet's resources could be used to ask biological questions that a hyper conservative organization like the NIH is reluctant to fund, but that's a little less useful if most of that knowledge stays locked up at Google.

Another note, it's not trivial to apply computational tools to biology and come back with meaningful results. The fact that they're hiring people who really know their biology to act as a sanity check and a guide to what we can only assume is a strong computational effort is a very welcome indication that Calico is trying to avoid those pitfalls.