If shareholders want to pay their CEO more directly from their pockets in the form of dilution, it doesn't hurt or affect the standard employee in any way.
GAAP requires companies to report stock compensation as an expense because it does actually move wealth around in a zero-sum fashion. It’s not a magic free money tree.
And it's specifically called a non-cash expense, because it doesn't affect cash (which salary does). You are correct in that it isn't a free money tree. It's paid for by shareholders. If the shareholders wish to pay their CEO $X, the government has no reason to intervene. It doesn't make the employees any better or worse off.
(Many do in fact. Carl Icahn for instance.)
AFAIK, Jeff hasn't gotten a stock grant since the IPO in 1997, so the vast majority of his net worth gains are purely capitol gains from holding amazon stock for over 20 years. Since there have not been additional stocks granted, this increase in Bezos' wealth actually costs Amazon nothing, not even dilution, as it's just an increase of value of existing shares.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-has-...
Google might not agree with the "lower class" part but the fact that for an application engineer to switch roles to software engineering within google requires them to go through a harder interview process indicates a deliberate caste based ranking structure that limits growth based off of your ability to pass an algorithm interview.
I actually believe it's 100% within google's rights to do something like this, but I think it's very bad that they disguise this ranking with the role name. I know people who didn't realize what they were getting into until they joined google.
Seriously, just name the role for what it is: High IQ Software Engineers vs. Average IQ Software Engineers because that's essentially what they're interviewing for.
I've had friends hired without being aware of this fact. Literally great software engineers at other companies with google fully aware of their previous title than suddenly unknowingly delegated to a lower class position with google not elucidating the difference.
It's like a software engineer applying for a software technician job. And you as the hiring manager not mentioning anything because you know the person applying isn't yet fully aware of the difference. These roles are literally targetting people who have software engineer in their titles but can't make the cut of the normal google interview.
It should be made clear that there is a difference between a technician and an engineer... just like it needs to be made clear that an application engineer is not a software engineer at google.
Also I would argue that the expectations are generally the same. You are spending your days programming there's really no difference.
Additionally it's an elitist attitude on googles part. Basically their saying that everyone who is normally considered a software engineer at other places aren't qualified to be software engineers at google. The only people considered to be software engineers are the people who pass that interview which is less than 1% of all people who apply. So they funnel these people into a lower caste that can never move on to be a software engineer EVEN when performance proves otherwise.
Never is it mentioned that this is a position that is not a software engineer and is paid less than a software engineer.
Like do I need to ask whether a backend engineer is a software engineer? If not why do I need to ask this about an Application Engineer?
This role is where google puts most of their contractors.