It saddens me that so many smart people work for IT companies like Google and Facebook, while they could make a real difference doing medical or fundamental physics research.
I have no stock in Google or Facebook and don't benefit by promoting either in any way. I just genuinely appreciate what Google's tools has allowed us to do (linked spreadsheets, email, docs, Android, Chromebook, drive and search of course!). I don't care much for fb but I imagine there are businesses that wouldn't survive w/o it and whatsapp is amazing at bringing ppl closer.
But Google and Facebook are not the only companies in town that provide these products. They just invest insane amounts of money (and thus human resources) to be marginally better than everybody else. That is the saddening part of it.
Your argument falls apart there because they wouldn't be the only companies in town doing "medical or fundamental physics research" either.
It is blind luck that the industries and/or execution by Fb & Google allow them to print money - I don't think you can expect the same successes had they started off as medical or physics startups.
Incidentally, Alphabet is diversifying into medical research with Calico, and I hope it will turn out to be more than a billionaire's way of coping with their mortality.
Comments like these seem to suggest that Google or Facebook are the worst and one spends their time better somewhere other than IT. I really just don't see it.
For instance, if Google search took 2 seconds per search instead of 100ms, they would lose their market share. But that difference in performance is what is keeping 95% of their highly educated workforce busy.
It is just a worthless arms race, and I hope that people start to realize this.