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>So the only sense in which Google "should" pay more isn't a practical one (clearly they pay enough to fill their roles) or a justice one (they're not stealing $500m in value from each employee if their bottom wouldn't much notice any single employee's absence)—it's some sort of argument about an ethereal sense of fairness that says that by merely participating in a system you're entitled to the average per-person output of that system. Which is definitely an ethic, but it's not one I can get behind.

I see where you're coming from but I think you're missing the fact that large projects have lots of bullshit work that requires high skill but is technically lower value. There is a lower bound to what people will accept, as people with marginally better skills get lucky enough to get highly-visible and much more highly compensated roles. The pay stratification you wish for is already built in, and the average just reflects the fact that these companies DO make enough money to have competitive pay rates.

The logic around which you base your entire argument is completely flawed.

Firing an employee most likely won't reduce the bottom line.

But every employee is a chance to increase it by creating a new project/product etc.

So firing would reduce the probability of a new idea generating an increase to the bottom line.

That framing doesn't change my logic at all: replace the direct earning of $N/year with the probability of earning $N/year and the same logic still applies. An employee doesn't contribute the probability, an employee working within the Google system contributes the probability. The system is doing the bulk of the work, and the per-employee probabilities of earning all that money are dramatically smaller in any other system.

Who do you think built that system

The very well-compensated early employees, leaders, and executives, working together as a team to create something that was greater than the sum of the parts. The average Googler in 2025 wasn't even on the team that created the initial system, they're a cog in a machine that someone else designed years ago. A very well paid cog.

Is hiring in tech like buying lottery tickets? 99% of hires will be duds, 1% will bring you $100m in profits?

It's not lol. It's more akin to construction. If you need 100 people to do a job in a given amount of time, you might be able to get it done with 99 people without issue. But that one person might have had an insight that would save you a lot of money overall. And if you kept getting rid of people, at some point the others will not be able to pick up the slack and might even ruin the project unwittingly.

I'd answer but it seems you didn't read the first part of what I wrote or even the second part (I never said 500m/year). So not much point.

Okay, you're right, I grabbed the wrong number. Sub in $1.5m/year or $500m/5 years and replace "bottom line this year" with "bottom line over the next 5 years".

The exact numbers don't matter, the point is the same: with only a few exceptions, no employee contributes the average per-employee output to the company. If they did, you could pick up your laptop and go to any other company and start earning them $N/year for whatever value of N you prefer.

First of all, Pareto Principle, so some employees contribute a ton and many contribute less. Second of all, having been in tech individual employees do drive projects that wouldn't have happened without them for a decent amount of time. In aggregate that moves the bottom line a ton

As for your second point, that's a straw men argument that assumed companies are omnipotent. The employees who drive the bottom line cannot truly prove this to a new employer so their value is diluted by those who don't. The general solution is to go into management (more visibility and no cap on comp), or to create (or join) your own startup (which doesn't have a rigid interview process and you can use "references"). Which many do given how many startups exist in the Bay Area. Companies also may give out large bonuses in RSUs to keep those employees.

> First of all, Pareto Principle, so some employees contribute a ton and many contribute less.

Correct. But with very few exceptions I don't believe that any one person contributes $500m in value over 5 years.

> Second of all, having been in tech individual employees do drive projects that wouldn't have happened without them for a decent amount of time. In aggregate that moves the bottom line a ton

In aggregate, yes. But it's the systems that aggregate the contributions of the employees and turn them into profits.

> As for your second point, that's a straw men argument that assumed companies are omnipotent. The employees who drive the bottom line cannot truly prove this to a new employer so their value is diluted by those who don't.

I'm assuming you mean omniscient, and no, I'm not assuming omniscience because I'm not actually talking about a company's ability to attribute value creation, I'm talking about the employee's ability to attribute it. Any random Google employee who thinks that they contributed $500m over 5 years can't just pick up their laptop and go work for a startup and expect that startup to make $500m over the next 5 years. It's not happening. The only way that their project made $500m was as a project embedded in the enormous money-making system that is Google, and absent that system they don't make that much money for the company.

Doesn't Sundar pull down $250MM / yr?

And as the CEO he's one of the few people who can reasonably make the claim that he's instrumental in creating the money-making system that is Google. We can argue about whether or not that perception is accurate in his case, but CEO pay being totally out of line with most employee compensation is based on the idea that I'm talking about: the system makes money, employees contribute to the system, and the more systemic your role is the greater your contribution to the system.

Just to be clear, your assertion was that NO EMPLOYEE contributes more than $1.5m/year to the company.

> no employee contributes the average per-employee output to the company

> Sub in $1.5m/year

Are you standing by that or is your new assertion now that no employee contributes $500m but that many do contribute $1.5m/year?

The back and forth is getting a bit confusing so trying to make sure we're on the same page.

edit: You do realize that a non-trivial number of employees including ICs are paid more than $1.5m/year. So even Google disagree with your assertion.

I'm not interested in engaging with you further because you've now twice ignored the main point of my argument in favor of nitpicks and out of context quotes asserting that I said things I didn't say. There's no point in engaging with that style of argument. Have a nice day.

The main point of your argument is materially different if you mean $500m or $1.5m. I agree there's no point in responding if you're just going to flip flop to whichever is more convenient to that particular response and then get upset when called out for it. Either make a consistent argument or deal with it when called out.

edit: There's also a material difference between no one, a few, many and the majority. You made a specific claim that no employee provides more then $1.5m of value. I disproved that with Google's own comp. Not my problem you're butt hurt about being called out for being wrong with quotes you said yourself.