irrespective of any of that. Respect to the guy for standing on principle and removing himself from a technology project he found ethically inexcusable. I'm also a bit surprised more Googlers haven't followed suit.
At any company with 50,000+ employees most generalizations will be wrong.
I find my work interesting. I fully admit that I don't have an expectations my job will make the world better even though it may in some small way because I don't believe that's what companies are for.
I work to make a living like most people. I'd like to make the world a better place but I don't tie that to my job since sadly the incentives don't really align. Still I'd consider Google to be pretty good compared to other companies given how much they donate but I guess it's easy to donate when you make a lot of money.