Google was evil even in 2010. For example, in 2007 Google actively conspired with Apple to illegally fix wages industry wide, concealing their activity, and using the threat of spurious patent litigation to force hesitant executives into their illegal collusion.
Even though I didn't work at one of the colluding companies, I got a ~20% step function in my income when the collusion finally collapsed and wages became more competitive across the industry. Considering indirect effects like this, the amounts stolen from workers in related industry probably amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars.
Regardless of how much the employees were being paid, CEOs colluding with each other to not recruit employees from each other was a blatant violation of US anti-trust law.
That’s shortly after they acquired DoubleClick in 2008 – note in particular how they haven’t managed to introduce a good new product since that time. I think that’s because the torrent of ad revenue meant that nothing really affects the price of your stock so all of the executive types are busy playing politics without real fear that users won’t like what they’re shipping.
Even though I didn't work at one of the colluding companies, I got a ~20% step function in my income when the collusion finally collapsed and wages became more competitive across the industry. Considering indirect effects like this, the amounts stolen from workers in related industry probably amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars.