IBM(s ibm) likes to trot out Watson any time it needs to tout its tech bona fides. Watson proves that IBM “gets” big data, cloud and now mobile. In January the company even launched a new business unit around Watson dedicated $1 billion to it, and put veteran exec Michael Rhodin in charge of it. All in the hopes that Watson will be a $10 billion business by 2023.

Still, it doesn’t look so great that within weeks of announcing the new business unit, Manoj Saxena, who had led the Watson effort previously left IBM for an early-stage venture fund. He will, IBM said, continue to advise the company.

On Friday, The Wall Street Journal  (registration required) pointed to the fact that Saxena departed four months after telling IBMers what a great opportunity it was to work on technology that could cure cancer (Memorial Sloane Kettering Memorial Hospital is a…