You might waste some money, but at least they're not creating value for the other players. Is that their strategy?
The other people hired? Those individuals are likely getting paid $500k all-in and get to work on "world changing" software with unlimited future career opportunities ("I worked on AI at Waymo").
Why on earth wouldn't you take that job? Who cares if it actually turns out in the end.
For Waymo, you could hire 10x teams of 10 people to do the same thing. One team would eventually get it right.
If autonomous driving is the next trillion dollar idea, then this is all chump change.
You throw an EXCESSIVE amount of money at the problem and over-hire (and just naturally weed people out). Recruiting firms will gladly take anyones money to help solve this problem.