That's not what the person I was responding to was saying here, though. They are saying that Google is "overpaying" and that its hurting their small business. They're not saying that they're shareholders wanting more value.

If Google is succeeding at attracting talent from other companies, including the company of the person I was responding to, then it's more likely that they're not "overpaying", they're just paying enough to attract the talent away from other companies.

This is capitalism working. Google has a lot of money and they're putting it towards attracting and keeping their talent.

This is not actually why companies exist. Creating profit for shareholders is a side effect and only happens for a minority of companies. The purpose of a company is to provide value based on the service it provides or products it creates.