Crazy thing is that moves like this also benefit shareholders, albeit indirectly. A company that employees want to work for because they know they'll benefit first means that more and more of the top job seekers will try to work there, which means (indirectly) that the company will have the best of the best employees. As an investor, I would think that in the long term, that's the best use of the company's money and the best path to long-term growth.

I don't want a quarterly, biannual, or annual dividend if that means that that excess capital will be re-invested into better employees (or keeping current top employees) who produce better products which can better position the company in the long run.

For a long time I naively thought that was the whole point of investment: long term sustainability and allocation of capital that allowed companies to best compete.