This. Valve is a business and it sounds like they didn't think her ideas were going to provide value. In the end she got to walk away with all of the IP that she had developed on company time (and probably severance). I don't see what she has to complain about.
Jeri took quite a hit when she put her established and successful, entreprenurial lifestyle on ice to work "for the man." If you listen to that great podcast, you'll hear how she had to pack up her personal projects and local consulting gigs for regular, paying customers as well as her profitable and fun local-pinball-business to work at Valve.
Some people are perceiving Jeri's emotional crying about the experience as "whining" and "complaining." I don't think she's "butthurt" about the experience at all. It is just that it was intense and very personal, near to her core.
The interview from which the guardian article is highly condensed (remember to take your grain of salt) is a very inspiring example of going from one peak to another. She is certainly very savvy to go from being laid off in the morning, to marching out the door with the IP she created. We should all learn to be so clever!
So yes, she has nothing to whine about and no, she hasn't actually been whining about anything, only crying while telling the story because it was so intense. The world has sometimes gotten used to softballs, but Jeri is a hard-banger all the way. She mentions in the interview that she's actually going so far as to make a custom ASIC for the AR product. That's a step you only make if you are foolish and wealthy, or preparing for a major, major market movie. In EE terms, it's a cost-reduction move that only makes sense in >10K-100K quantity (well, depends on margin. Government contracts have lower thresholds.)
