I think there's two lenses here, both of which can yield insights. I was trying to comment at the level of "even accepting that the goal is to make money for s

I think there's two lenses here, both of which can yield insights. I was trying to comment at the level of "even accepting that the goal is to make money for shareholders, what's actually good for shareholders?". Even adopting the value system of investors, if Google can hire more employees of the caliber they have, their track record seems to say they will find valuable opportunities to pursue with those employees. More is probably still more. If we pick up the lens of "what other kind of good can be pursued given this kind of surplus", yes there's maybe a Marxist view that owners are stealing the value of these workers. But IDK that the fair and just scenario would be these employees making $3M/yr instead. Rather, I think if there's any "theft", it's from the rest of the world. Google could keep the same team, and the same product families, and just charge less / show fewer ads, and the company would still be very successful in absolute measures.