Pardon me but, what are the benefits of being declared a fellow?

I can't speak for SonicBlue, but at many other large companies, including IBM, Silicon Graphics, and others, the title of "fellow" or "principal scientist" generally gives a sort of carte blanche to the holder to do absolutely anything he or she wants. Paul Haeberli, for example, a principal scientist at SGI, did all kinds of cool hacks and things. I one met a neat fellow at IBM, Bruce Lindsay (also an ACM fellow), who spent a large amount of his time hassling IBM's database groups. Why? Because he could.

Will SonicBlue give Hugo this kind of unfettered freedom? What will he do with it? Heaven only knows, but I hope it will run on my car stereo.