"instead of actually investing in things like capital expenditures, R&D, or higher salaries"
Specifically the last one. The pay gap is larger than ever. The efficiency gains over the last 20 years or more are systematically being funneled up the food chain to executives and shareholders. Even in tech there's a ton of wage stagnation compared to the real cost of living over this period.
I think this is the crux of the assertion if I'm not mistaken. It's broken that the share of increased prosperity isn't anywhere near equally distributed. I wouldn't call that throwing money at random shit.
Because a robot that does flips can also flip burgers, pick inventory, sneak up on people (i.e. military) and ultimately that stuff will be worth a lot.
One of their lesser goofy investments.
Google dumped the robots for strategic reasons, moreover, it's going to be a while before payoff.
They are making 'real' investments in late stage companies with actual business models, or things that have obvious potential upsides.
Softbank is basically where companies go for D and E rounds instead of going public. So there is some risk, but way less risk than left-field, early stage investments.
Their 'real estate' investment is in WeWork, which probably will make them a lot of money as long as interest rates don't flinch higher, and as long as there is no real-estate crash.
Sprint, ARM, Yahoo, Uber, Slack - these are not 'crazy' investments, especially depending on price. Yahoo might actually have some 'decent fundamentals' on some level, and be worth something at some price. They have a gigantic audience, and some small changes might make them be profitable at some level, and they could very well be worth something, at some price.
It's a cross between classic private equity and late stage venture capital, all of their investments make sense in that context.
IMO it’s a sign companies are doing the intelligent thing and are assuming investors are better investors than throwing money at random shit.