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>They are simply not important enough (by hiring volume) to carry the weight they currently do. Unforunately, they are. A large proportion of the tech industry

>They are simply not important enough (by hiring volume) to carry the weight they currently do. Unforunately, they are. A large proportion of the tech industry is startups / small businesses. I'd be surprised if Google/Facebook/Amazon/Apple/Microsoft make up even 10% of tech workers.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Citation please. Startups are minuscule compared to total tech jobs. My current employer employees more tech workers than all YC startups combined, for example.
- B0btheBuilder 8y ago
  Google - 85,050 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google) Facebook - 25,105 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook) Amazon has 566,000 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)), but it's unclear how many of those are actually tech workers. Amazon has a lot of retail and warehouse workers, many of who with wages so low they qualify for food stamps. Apple - 123,000 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.) Apple's 2014 SEC filing said that half of their employees are retail workers, so let's give Apple 62,000 tech workers. Microsoft - 124,000 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft) There are around 7 million tech workers in the USA (https://www.comptia.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/2017/04/03/us-tech-sector-employment-approaches-seven-million https://www.comptia.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/201...) Even if we pretended that all 566,000 Amazon employees were actually tech workers (they're not) and the above numbers were US-only employees (they're not), that would total to about 860,000 tech workers. 860,000 / 7 million = 12.3% That means that at least 87.7% of American tech workers do not work at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, or Microsoft, despite these companies being five of the richest tech companies in the world.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    None of this validates your thesis that startups and small businesses are the majority tech employers. If anything, it reinforces mine.
  - vonmoltke 8y ago
    On my phone on a train (so no numbers), but how about: Oracle Cisco IBM Dell HP Enterprise HP Inc. Lockheed Martin Northrop Grumman Raytheon General Dynamics General Electric Intel AMD Qualcomm Texas Instruments United Technologies Analog Devices Samsung Phillips Toshiba ... I'm gonna stop listing all the big tech companies I can think of. I madey point.

toomuchtodo 8y ago

Citation please. Startups are minuscule compared to total tech jobs. My current employer employees more tech workers than all YC startups combined, for example.

B0btheBuilder 8y ago
Google - 85,050 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google) Facebook - 25,105 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook) Amazon has 566,000 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)), but it's unclear how many of those are actually tech workers. Amazon has a lot of retail and warehouse workers, many of who with wages so low they qualify for food stamps. Apple - 123,000 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.) Apple's 2014 SEC filing said that half of their employees are retail workers, so let's give Apple 62,000 tech workers. Microsoft - 124,000 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft) There are around 7 million tech workers in the USA (https://www.comptia.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/2017/04/03/us-tech-sector-employment-approaches-seven-million https://www.comptia.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/201...) Even if we pretended that all 566,000 Amazon employees were actually tech workers (they're not) and the above numbers were US-only employees (they're not), that would total to about 860,000 tech workers. 860,000 / 7 million = 12.3% That means that at least 87.7% of American tech workers do not work at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, or Microsoft, despite these companies being five of the richest tech companies in the world.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  None of this validates your thesis that startups and small businesses are the majority tech employers. If anything, it reinforces mine.
- vonmoltke 8y ago
  On my phone on a train (so no numbers), but how about: Oracle Cisco IBM Dell HP Enterprise HP Inc. Lockheed Martin Northrop Grumman Raytheon General Dynamics General Electric Intel AMD Qualcomm Texas Instruments United Technologies Analog Devices Samsung Phillips Toshiba ... I'm gonna stop listing all the big tech companies I can think of. I madey point.