[jcnnghm]

Goldman Sachs 2011 net income was $162,913 per employee. Average pay was $367,057. It's harder to get data on Google, but it looks like the mid-career median salary is $141,000. Google's Gross Profit (Total Revenue less Cost of Revenue) was $24.7B in 2011, and GS's was $24.5B. At the same time, Google had 32,467 employees to GS's 35,700. Yet, the Google net income was $9.7B compared to $4.4B on the GS side. The difference seems to be made up entirely by the difference in employee compensation.

It's the money, stupid.

[dba7dba]

Google's success doesn't and won't carry America's economy. And most of google's top paid employees are programmers.

It's the success of companies that design/make things that will carry America's economy. And these companies are losing their top prospects to Wall Street. Not a good trend.

[gertef]

"salary" != "total compensation"

[binarysolo]

Does this account for the strong differential in number of independent contractors who work at GS vs GOOG? (re: revenue/headcount)

[mimiflynn]

I've met some pretty overworked Goldman analysts, and they made over 200k a year barely two years out of college. Its definitely the money.