>So if one finds a way to do it and not hire people they actually earned the money by that definition?

That's the fun part: they cannot make a billion dollars through their own work. It doesn't exist. Billions of dollars do not exist without either collaboration (extremely rare), or exploitation of others (see: every single YC company)

>Whereas: If they hire a single employee to help with, idk, responding to support tickets that would get them into "well maybe you did not earn it"-territory?

Would you have made that billion without the employee ? If not, you did not earn it. Would your company have gone under if you didn't have someone handling those support tickets, what percentage of the survival of the company is linked to it, and why didn't you pay them nearly that percentage ? Congratulations on exploiting your employee.