Money is relative. I bet there are things $1bn can buy that we aren't even aware of because we were never exposed to it. Some of those things are probably non-tangible, like the ability to influence politics and change the world.
Of course this doesn't mean everyone is aware of these things but they're still publicly known.
After all, money is nothing else but a token of work. The more money you have, the more work you can make other people do.
I think you're reaching. The things you're talking about have physical impacts. You can't run computers without building chips, developing power systems, and so on. Yes, things of value need not be inherently physical but there are no things that are not connected to the physical world in some form or another.
There's another way I like to think about what you said: cutting fat. If cutting fat is the easiest way to get stock price up (on a quarterly evaluation) then that's probably what most people will do. But how frequently can you cut fat before you start cutting limbs? The more effectively you did it previously (or the person before you) the less you have available to you. Not to mention that some fat is necessary for big businesses. I suspect this is connected to the trend of enshitification we see.
> "I keep the money pipe flowing and did not actively make it worse" does not get you a promotion.
It's actually quite sad that it doesn't. Or that the money pipe flowing is by far the main metric used for evaluation. Especially when the market is cornered. Your strategy should change when your environment does. I just wonder what these people are doing with this money and why they want it so much. $1bn is essentially unspendable. But we see 200 people with 10x that and 15 people with 100x that. I just don't get why they care anymore. But I guess people really care about points?