mungofitch:
All that being said, Alphabet's moats are so strong that it can withstand a remarkable number of dumb management moves, which is why it has made it such a great investment despite spending equity like water. But the shareholders would still be better off without those moves.

Or a possible other explanation.

Google's management has been entrusted with great moats kept full of alligators by constant superiority in technical achievement. These moats are associated with some of the most spectacular returns to investors that investors have ever seen.

In an abundance of caution, Google's management has determined that SPLITTING the riches between the people who bought a ticket to go on the ride with the people who's job it is to keep the ride going is their safest path forward. Rather than an unconscionable return to investors only, they have opted for an unconscionable return to workers as well. Rather than risking that a workforce paid as if the work they produced was supporting just another large cap company growing at a slightly higher rate than average, they have decided to reduce the THEORETICAL return of their investors to a rate which is just half-unconscionable by increasing the pay of their workforce by a half-unconscionable amount.

Is this a stupid thing to do?

The result seems to be a bunch of rich investors and a bunch of rich employees in an enterprise whos technical lead has been sustained for decades.

So maybe the explanation is that you really do get more for your money when you pay more money, that a trillion$ more pay can be properly managed in such a way to produce well more than a trillion$ more value, which according to most of what we think about business should not be a complete shock.

Maybe the story is simpler than you think, and that paying for results, managed right, gets you results, and it isn't just a rip off of the non-employee shareholders who have some sort of god given right to unconscionable returns that the employees do not have.

R:)