I'd imagine at the time of these deal talks, they were the only talent.

Have you heard of Google, and how as a late entrant to web search, it's grown to be the 4th-most-valuable public company in the world, largely based on superior technology?

But seriously, while I can't be sure Page & Brin were necessarily the absolute best of all Google's talent, they seem pretty smart & effective.

They did a lot of the original work, and hired & managed the original team – which at the time of these Excite negotiations, was probably just a dozen or so people. (That is, smaller than the ~100 person Excite search team whose results they at least matched, drawing the acquisition interest for their impressive performance & scaling potential.) Page & Brin both remained deeply involved in Google's successful product efforts for another decade, and Page is still CEO of the successor parent company Alphabet.

Neither Google, nor Excite in the hypothetical alt-timeline where Excite bought Google, would have wanted to lose Page, Brin, or other top talent by the end of 2001 – when Excite@Home hit the rocks in our timeline.