Comment by zjaffee

If you really think this you simply have no theory of mind for this stuff. There are tons of immensely successful products in the ad space that both of those companies have launched. They don't need to innovate in the product or technology space (doing so certainly makes a big difference in having more placement for ad real estate), but to suggest there have been no real innovations (specifically engineering specific innovations) related to ad tech would be completely ridiculous to suggest. You don't need to change the world to get rich, just look at wall street where major innovations have been made in the pricing models of fixed income securities.

Second to this are countless other areas that have a major impact on the companies bottom line that are entirely engineering driven, especially at google given they are a cloud provider and have meaningfully grown the workspace business and launched waymo in this time.