The interns' goal is to learn the trade. The companies goal is to attract talent and/or get a ROI. In my company an intern conducted research on scalability -

The interns' goal is to learn the trade. The companies goal is to attract talent and/or get a ROI. In my company an intern conducted research on scalability - creating tools to measure and monitor the software in the mean time. So not only does the company have some neat monitoring tools now, the intern actually found a bottleneck and improved the product. The company is now offering her a contract... Caring about eachother doesn't have much to do with it.