I don't mean to diminish/belittle DHH. What he's done (web framework, productivity SaaS, self-help books, sales/marketing, conference speakers, racing) it's not what Google does (web-browser, OS, AI, maps, search, scale, etc).

I also don't get why people like DHH is assumed to be a "miss" for not being hired by some of these company...

DHH is a unique individual with his own way of thinking. He wouldn't be DHH if he works for someone else (or under someone).

You don't generally hire people like that to work for you on something specific. You hire them with a very broad goal and give them the resources to accomplish the task how they see fit. With a bit of nudging here and there you should end up with a very marketable outcome wether it's a product or a prestigious research division or widely used piece of software that everyone knows is associated with your company.

What DHH does could absolutely be incorporated by Google. Angular => RoR, GCE => Saas, conference speakers => conference speakers.

Anyway the point is that even at a company like Google there's plenty of room for people that haven't memorized algorithms and data structures but companies that only interview on these sorts of things are missing out on them because they seemingly don't care or haven't figured out how to interview someone substantially different from what they normally hire.

SaaS != GCE.

I find the skillset required to build Basecamp differs greatly with building AWS/GCE portfolio (with over hundred different services that can be combined to deliver solutions for multiple ranges of companies...)

I don't think Google was looking for someone to build RoR or Angular. Those were merely side projects that came out once every few years. No offense but some of the key components of RoR were implementation of Martin Fowler's Enterprise Application Architecture patterns.