[eru]

Doesn't matter too much what Google/Alphabet shareholders think. The controlling majority is with the founders, and the company is not going to the markets anytime soon to ask for more capital.

[melling]

"any time soon" What exactly does that mean? The next two years? If people start dumping your stock, I'm sure there will be repercussions.

[eru]

What kind of repercussions? Please elaborate.

The only result of a lower stock price that I can see is that Google employees might demand cash instead of stock for compensation. (But Google still does make enough in cash.)

And by 'demand' I mean: get unhappy, be more likely to leave, and for new hires, be more likely to take up alternative offers instead.

[knowaveragejoe]

Well, to be fair, people probably won't be dumping their stock over this news.

[melling]

To be really fair, I didn't say they would. I was addressing the long-term impact of spending large sums of money without any clear benefit.

People are usually content while a company is growing fast enough.