I don't really feel sorry for the employees. There's this fascination between geeks to work at one of these "prestigious" companies, Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. yet at the end of they day you are burning all your time, effort, essentially your life, to make a few guys rich.
They pay you enough to keep you happy, give you a few "interesting" problems to work on if you're lucky, maybe a couple of perks at the office. Why are you selling your soul to these guys in the first place? I just don't get why you'd be interested in making someone else rich for some geek-cred.
That's pretty pessimistic. Sometimes there actually are interesting problems at those companies. Larger companies can also offer benefits that aren't available at some other companies-- sometimes security, sometimes work-life balance, greater access to resources or talented people. Not everyone's tradeoffs will be the same when evaluating where to work or what to do.
And in the end, pretty much everyone is working for someone to "make a few guys rich". Unless you're a completely self-funded founder or investor.
They pay you enough to keep you happy, give you a few "interesting" problems to work on if you're lucky, maybe a couple of perks at the office. Why are you selling your soul to these guys in the first place? I just don't get why you'd be interested in making someone else rich for some geek-cred.