Supply + Demand determine the value.
"Supply + demand" seems an oversimplification of a huge chain of irrational human links.
What actual risk does an investor take? Loss of capital? Compared to an employee who, in the situation where capital is lost, loses the means by which they feed and house themselves, and in the USA, provide healthcare for themselves?
On top of which, right now, investors aren't really taking much loss. This action by Google is done for shareholder value. So not only is the loss for an employee higher in a situation that "harms" a shareholder, it's also more pervasive: the employee might get fired anyway through no fault of their own, even if it's not because the company is going bankrupt and everyone's losing their money.
And while all this is happening the investor has invested in other ventures, potentially even competitors. If google goes bankrupt they lose their initial investment, which by most financial advisories I see should not account for a significant portion of their investment, retirement, or even just savings, so by material measures, they'll be fine.
Meanwhile the employee has put in their time, energy effort. They haven't been able to explore other means of making money, do research into potential investments for themselves. They've been building social capital, specific domain knowledge, client relationships, things that hold some value after a Google collapse, but not all.
At the end of the day I just don't see why what an investor does has any value at all compared to an employee. Can you help me understand better what you mean?
Without investors, the employee does not get paid, as there is no money to pay him.
I.e. you're positing the "Labor Theory of Value", which is the basis of Marxism.
The LToV errs in assigning zero value to risk-taking and the fact that some people are far more productive than others.