I agree with your assessment of Google, Facebook et al not needing almost all of their manpower. They hire because they can and because they (and, by proxy, the

I agree with your assessment of Google, Facebook et al not needing almost all of their manpower. They hire because they can and because they (and, by proxy, their shareholders) sincerely believe that this manpower can create nonnegative marginal improvements to an already very successful "machine" and because they fear that going lean will make it impossible to adapt to changing markets. The key difference is this: they earned the money and they can do with it whatever their shareholders allow them to. Wikimedia, on the other hand, get the money from the annual beg-fest aka "give is money or bad things may happen to humanity's last remaining encyclopedia" racket and they are only bound by whatever liberal interpretation they apply to their statutes. The problem I see with this is that with each increase in avoidable expenses they increase the risk of donations one day not keeping up with rising expenses, threatening the very existence of Wikipedia as we know it. By growing expenses, they are essentially endangering what they are supposed to protect.