• zeca@lemmy.eco.br
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    9 hours ago

    Would that market cap be so high if all those employees were paid that extra million yearly? Market caps depend on more than the actual value of the company’s product to society.

    • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Would that market cap be so high if all those employees were paid that extra million yearly?

      Yes, that is what I meant by simplification.

      On the other hand Google as search engine and ads (the part that makes money) needs fraction of the employees alphabet has. If they had to pay them that much, they would have never hired most of them.

      • zeca@lemmy.eco.br
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        1 hour ago

        If they had to pay them that much, they would have never hired most of them.

        exactly. A company tant doesnt overexplore its workers cannot grow like alphabet did. The underpayment of the workers is an essential feature of alphabet, and part of what makes its market capitalization that high.

        This implies that the answer to my question is “no”: if the workers had been paid properly from the start, there wouldnt be the discrepancy that makes the founder billionaires.

        • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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          34 minutes ago

          exactly. A company tant doesnt overexplore its workers cannot grow like alphabet did

          No, alphabet has always made most of its money from their ad business, supported by search. Most of their other efforts, including YouTube were never profitable or insignificantly profitable. If they did not over-explore, they would create even more value per employee by not wasting resources. Maybe even more value in absolute terms.