They probably could find "a competent CEO", but that's not the bar, and it doesn't make sense to do so, because of the oversized impact and risks. If you're 99% certain that a person is as competent as the current CEO and 1% they're a dud like Carly Fiorina, then saving a measly $100m is not worth the enormous risk. And if you've got a candidate that makes you certain that they would be even slightly more competent than Pichai, then it would be worth paying an extra $100m to get them; if CEO A can get e.g. 1% more efficiency than CEO B (for example, by being more aggressive at laying off people) then that's easily worth that money.

Well the whole argument here by a big section of comments -- if not the majority -- including Googlers is "they haven't found one in Sundar."

I think finding a great CEO for the particular strategy and company is harder than we all think. (Yes I know the fault of the previous sentence -- it was on purpose.)

You don't think you could find a competent software engineer for $80k?