[michaelt]

Eh, that's kinda normal. Just because the queen shows up to get photographed cutting a ribbon at a new university building, doesn't mean anyone imagines she laid any bricks or tiled any bathrooms.

The photo you linked to is only confusing because he's not wearing a suit. Chuck that guy in a suit, have him look on politely as someone in a high-vis vest or a lab coat points at something, and this photo would be one among thousands.

[Gud]

> Chuck that guy in a suit, have him look on politely as someone in a high-vis vest or a lab coat points at something, and this photo would be one among thousands.

That would be different. In that situation it is clear who is doing the work, and who is providing the money.

But posing in front of a widget, he is signaling to the world, “I made this”.

[TaylorAlexander]

Or from another perspective, it's weird when the Queen does it too.

[hyperman1]

It makes more sense if the queen is just a mascot for $country. The whole country got together and made it, but its not practical to get everyone on the photo. So you put a crown on some random person to make clear she's a representation of the whole country, not a real person (at that instant).

What's missing here is the crown/suit/...

[SequoiaHope]

I think there is some ideology attached to how "normal" that would be, and whether someone accepts the "mascot" analogy.

If society were very focused on worker's rights and the recognition of the necessity of labor, such as in an idealized socialist society or a society with a predominance of worker cooperatives in the economy, then the idea of having a monarch or CEO of a company standing in front of the hard work of people whose names are not mentioned and whose faces are not pictured would seem absurd. You would expect and indeed commonly see photos showing many workers in front of the item in question.

Just as an example I went to the wikipedia page for the Tennessee Valley Authority, and it was quick to find what I would expect: a photo of a large group of workers in front of a dam they constructed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority#/me...

Or you might find a focused photo of a worker who is one of the people who built the thing, and representative of the type of workers on the project:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority#/me...

I say this just to say, sure it can "make sense" but I think this is an artifact of the world we live in, where we have a hierarchical government and most firms in our economy are themselves hierarchical in nature. And so when the person at the top of the hierarchy stands for a photo op in front of the thing, we naturally accept that they serve as a "representation" of the output of the company.

But someone with a more worker-focused view would be more inclined to see that and find it off-putting. For the photo of Sundar Pichai up thread, I do in fact find it irritating that they don't even mention the people who were involved with the project he is standing in front of. And wouldn't you know it, I am a very pro-worker in inclination.