The pi foundation was started by a group of Broadcom engineers. If not for that connection, Broadcom would likely have never given them the time of day - they are notoriously bad to deal with if you are a small company.
It's possible they see this as some sort of marketing, but I don't think they are using it to drive a sales funnel of low-volume customers.
It's possible they see this as some sort of marketing, but I don't think they are using it to drive a sales funnel of low-volume customers.