6 ms·

Ask HN: Why does SNAP need 1,859 employees?

46 points by newyearnewyou 9y ago

Do they really need this many people to handle advertisers and run the app? I know they have a research team for the spectacles but this seems excessive.

kjksf 9y ago
https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/ https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/
- tedmiston 9y ago
  I think developers also easily forget that building a business, relationships, and marketing are non-trivial tasks that take more than a weekend.
- wodenokoto 9y ago
  This was a great article. The point about adding engineers until marginal returns per employee reaches their salary is a great angle in explaining why companies don't want to stay lean.
  - Klockan 9y ago
    That would be a good point if Snap inc was making money. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/technology/snap-public-company-start-ups.html?_r=1 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/technology/snap-public-co...
    - dsacco 9y ago
      It's still a good point. Scaling a company is orthogonal to scaling it profitably. One is primarily an engineering problem and the other is a business problem.
adamb_ 9y ago
Compared to the # of users -- i.e. orders of magnitude greater -- that's a pretty reasonably-sized team.
- cuchoi 9y ago
  "As of January 2016, 45.4 million persons were participating in SNAP." https://www.snaptohealth.org/snap/snap-frequently-asked-questions/#howmany https://www.snaptohealth.org/snap/snap-frequently-asked-ques... https://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/pd/SNAPsummary.pdf https://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/pd/SNAPsummary.... http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/21/donald-trump/trump-43-million-americans-food-stamps/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/...
  - lovich 9y ago
    I think they meant SNAP the ticker symbol for Snapchat and not the government program.
  - wand3r 9y ago
    I also thought it was that Snap initially.
- ac29 9y ago
  Compared to revenue it doesnt seem crazy either: at approx $150M in Q1-17, thats over $300k revenue per employee per year (if the revenue and headcount stays flat). Certainly there are many profitable companies at a ratio like that. But for ad-fueled companies the bar to profitability and long term success is quite a bit higher: Alphabet does about 4x that ($1.3M/employee/year) [0], and Facebook does even better ($1.8M/employee/year) [1][2]. [0] https://abc.xyz/investor/news/earnings/2017/Q1_alphabet_earnings/ https://abc.xyz/investor/news/earnings/2017/Q1_alphabet_earn... [1] https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2017/Facebook-Reports-First-Quarter-2017-Results/ https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/... [2] https://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/ https://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/
forgottenacc57 9y ago
Because you don't get a big valuation without the appearance of being big.
- o2l 9y ago
  But aren't they already big in terms of users. And the people who valuate the business should be easily able to cut through this false appearance. Whatsapp got a big valuation with <100 employees.
- mikek 9y ago
  Instagram and WhatsApp show this to be false.
panic 9y ago
They don't need that many employees. Every team wants to hire more people for various reasons, so more people will be hired as long as there is budget for it.
Endy 9y ago
I'm sorry, but do you mean SNAP as in SnapChat, or do you mean SNAP as in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program? Either one has good reason to have a sizable team.
- paulddraper 9y ago
  I was really confused by the comments until I realized SNAP must be SnapChat.
- brador 9y ago
  SNAP is the stock symbol for Snapchat.
ExactoKnight 9y ago
It's the iron law of oligarchy at work. I struggle to find many tech companies outside of the big four that didn't begin to decline long term post-IPO.
- aey 9y ago
  Their obligation to maximize shareholder returns is what drives them to grow as much as possible. The big 4 just happen to have done a good job at it (or got lucky).
tyingq 9y ago
Judging by their jobs page, it's uber-specialization and the natural tendency of job preservation. For example, there's these four jobs: Character Artist/Bitmoji, Illustrator/Bitmoji, Product Design/Bitmoji, Technical Lead/Bitmoji No idea how many people already work on it. But there will be four more. And they will find ways to justify their existence, and grow the size of the group so that their relative importance versus other products gives enough internal power.
Sevii 9y ago
Building the core platform maybe took 100. Optimizing the platform to make money probably takes 1000+.
riffic 9y ago
That's just how bubbles work.
1ba9115454 9y ago
It's like when you watch a film and the credits roll by at the end. There seems to be hundreds of people involved and I often think maybe they could have gotten away with a few actors and a cameraman.
- Guyag 9y ago
  I've seen (but can't find) some discussion on here about the movie industry in relation to this, I think in relation to what Netflix is doing with their originals. Apparently it's really heavily unionised, with people having incredibly specific jobs which only they are allowed to do, which is strongly baked into their general culture. Doubt it's the same case as SNAP, but just an interesting titbit. Can't find a source offhand.
jamesmishra 9y ago
Snapchat does a few different things now: - hardware design - computer vision - iOS, Android, and server development - content production -- shooting video, writing scripts, etc. - selling advertising -- they need many account managers and salespeople for this and then there is HR, Legal, and Finance to support the aforementioned orgs. For a company like Snap, 1,859 employees is pretty small. At this time of writing, Uber has somewhere around 12,000 and Facebook has about 18,000.

46 points by newyearnewyou 9y ago

Do they really need this many people to handle advertisers and run the app? I know they have a research team for the spectacles but this seems excessive.

kjksf 9y ago

https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/ https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/

tedmiston 9y ago
I think developers also easily forget that building a business, relationships, and marketing are non-trivial tasks that take more than a weekend.
wodenokoto 9y ago
This was a great article. The point about adding engineers until marginal returns per employee reaches their salary is a great angle in explaining why companies don't want to stay lean.
- Klockan 9y ago
  That would be a good point if Snap inc was making money. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/technology/snap-public-company-start-ups.html?_r=1 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/technology/snap-public-co...
  - dsacco 9y ago
    It's still a good point. Scaling a company is orthogonal to scaling it profitably. One is primarily an engineering problem and the other is a business problem.

adamb_ 9y ago

Compared to the # of users -- i.e. orders of magnitude greater -- that's a pretty reasonably-sized team.

cuchoi 9y ago
"As of January 2016, 45.4 million persons were participating in SNAP." https://www.snaptohealth.org/snap/snap-frequently-asked-questions/#howmany https://www.snaptohealth.org/snap/snap-frequently-asked-ques... https://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/pd/SNAPsummary.pdf https://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/pd/SNAPsummary.... http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/21/donald-trump/trump-43-million-americans-food-stamps/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/...
- lovich 9y ago
  I think they meant SNAP the ticker symbol for Snapchat and not the government program.
- wand3r 9y ago
  I also thought it was that Snap initially.
ac29 9y ago
Compared to revenue it doesnt seem crazy either: at approx $150M in Q1-17, thats over $300k revenue per employee per year (if the revenue and headcount stays flat). Certainly there are many profitable companies at a ratio like that. But for ad-fueled companies the bar to profitability and long term success is quite a bit higher: Alphabet does about 4x that ($1.3M/employee/year) [0], and Facebook does even better ($1.8M/employee/year) [1][2]. [0] https://abc.xyz/investor/news/earnings/2017/Q1_alphabet_earnings/ https://abc.xyz/investor/news/earnings/2017/Q1_alphabet_earn... [1] https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2017/Facebook-Reports-First-Quarter-2017-Results/ https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/... [2] https://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/ https://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/

forgottenacc57 9y ago

Because you don't get a big valuation without the appearance of being big.

o2l 9y ago
But aren't they already big in terms of users. And the people who valuate the business should be easily able to cut through this false appearance. Whatsapp got a big valuation with <100 employees.
mikek 9y ago
Instagram and WhatsApp show this to be false.

panic 9y ago

They don't need that many employees. Every team wants to hire more people for various reasons, so more people will be hired as long as there is budget for it.

Endy 9y ago

I'm sorry, but do you mean SNAP as in SnapChat, or do you mean SNAP as in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program? Either one has good reason to have a sizable team.

paulddraper 9y ago
I was really confused by the comments until I realized SNAP must be SnapChat.
brador 9y ago
SNAP is the stock symbol for Snapchat.

ExactoKnight 9y ago

It's the iron law of oligarchy at work. I struggle to find many tech companies outside of the big four that didn't begin to decline long term post-IPO.

aey 9y ago
Their obligation to maximize shareholder returns is what drives them to grow as much as possible. The big 4 just happen to have done a good job at it (or got lucky).

tyingq 9y ago

Judging by their jobs page, it's uber-specialization and the natural tendency of job preservation. For example, there's these four jobs: Character Artist/Bitmoji, Illustrator/Bitmoji, Product Design/Bitmoji, Technical Lead/Bitmoji No idea how many people already work on it. But there will be four more. And they will find ways to justify their existence, and grow the size of the group so that their relative importance versus other products gives enough internal power.

Sevii 9y ago

Building the core platform maybe took 100. Optimizing the platform to make money probably takes 1000+.

riffic 9y ago

That's just how bubbles work.

1ba9115454 9y ago

It's like when you watch a film and the credits roll by at the end. There seems to be hundreds of people involved and I often think maybe they could have gotten away with a few actors and a cameraman.

Guyag 9y ago
I've seen (but can't find) some discussion on here about the movie industry in relation to this, I think in relation to what Netflix is doing with their originals. Apparently it's really heavily unionised, with people having incredibly specific jobs which only they are allowed to do, which is strongly baked into their general culture. Doubt it's the same case as SNAP, but just an interesting titbit. Can't find a source offhand.

jamesmishra 9y ago

Snapchat does a few different things now: - hardware design - computer vision - iOS, Android, and server development - content production -- shooting video, writing scripts, etc. - selling advertising -- they need many account managers and salespeople for this and then there is HR, Legal, and Finance to support the aforementioned orgs. For a company like Snap, 1,859 employees is pretty small. At this time of writing, Uber has somewhere around 12,000 and Facebook has about 18,000.