It kinda' does, doesn't it?

Re: the "hobby" part is where I agree with you the most. Where you say it's not solving genuine problems is where I differ the most.

It really feels to me like Comma is staffed by people who recognize that they never stopped enjoying playing with Lego -- their bricks just grew up, and they realized they can:

1) solve real-world problems

2) not be jerks about it

3) get paid to do it

Not everything has to be about optimizing for #3.

I'm a happy paying customer of Comma.ai (Comma four, baby!) -- their product is awesome, extremely consumer-friendly, and I hope they can grow in their success!

To me it sounds more like a return to vertical integration.

This is becoming increasingly common as far as I can tell.

There are benefits either direction, and I think that each company needs to evaluate the pros and cons themselves. Emotional pros/cons are something companies need to evaluate as employee morale can make or break a company. If the company is super technical in culture and they gain something intangible that is boosting the bottom line, having a datacenter as a "cool" factor is probably worth it.

I'd argue that it is in the long-term interest of any genuinely innovative company to attract intellectually curious talent with some coolness factor.