You have no idea what you're talking about. How much work is it to maintain the world's best search engine? Think about not only the algorithm/ranking problems

You have no idea what you're talking about. How much work is it to maintain the world's best search engine? Think about not only the algorithm/ranking problems, but also performance and systems problems. Google recently (2 weeks ago) completed a complete overhaul of it's backend - this took 2 years! Yet most users won't notice a difference between Google today and Google from 1 month ago. So your "calculus" is wrong, search is a tough problem and Google has a ton of work to do just with its core product. In fact, they claim that 70% of it's resources are spent on just its core search and advertising businesses. As for Google Labs, I'm sure everything Google releases has some goal to eventually add to the bottom line (If not directly then through increased customer loyalty or technology sharing). Let's not forget that while Google's employee base has been doubling every year,so have it's revenues so something is working.