Google is magic.

I'm not sure how this meshes with some of the claims of Tyler Cowen's The Great Stagnation [1]. He says that, although the web is an innovation that makes us greatly happier, it does it so efficiently that far, far fewer people need to be employed for the benefits to be reaped.

So here we are with Google's work force of 20,000 delivering $64Bn of value. That's great, but on the other hand, that's a lot of traditional jobs that don't need to exist (for those that think "full employment" is the most important thing)

On the other hand, anything that can pump so much value into the economy has to be a good thing. That value would, I assume, multiply into much greater benefits in ripples through the economy.

[1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/01/growth_2