At $5B for 12,000 employees, that works out to about $400,000 a pop. Each employee could have been given an apartment in many parts of the country... :-)
It's fun to think of numbers that way, but on the other hand, many of those 12k are not employees that were here when construction started, and likewise many of the employees that were around at the beginning of construction are gone.
I think it's a bit excessive for a universally known company but I get the idea of wanting a monument. Having moved from Houston to Silicon Valley, I remember being mildly disappointed by for example Google's campus. Like, it's just a regular old office campus. Nice, of course! Very nice, next to shoreline ampitheater, lots of trees, etc. But, I mean, it's Google. Was I expecting rocketships? Maybe! I dunno. I certainly was expecting something other than just... a campus.
I think it's a bit excessive for a universally known company but I get the idea of wanting a monument. Having moved from Houston to Silicon Valley, I remember being mildly disappointed by for example Google's campus. Like, it's just a regular old office campus. Nice, of course! Very nice, next to shoreline ampitheater, lots of trees, etc. But, I mean, it's Google. Was I expecting rocketships? Maybe! I dunno. I certainly was expecting something other than just... a campus.