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You do realize development include software engineering, right? 700 people doing programming isn't even remotely surprising. Not to defend them against the rec

You do realize development include software engineering, right? 700 people doing programming isn't even remotely surprising. Not to defend them against the recent security fiasco, but innuendos such as this that links "employees working in China" directly with "shady business" makes me at least uncomfortable.

blunte 7y ago
I didn't read it as suggesting it was "shady business". I read it as an insinuation that the company didn't know what it was doing from the top down, so they didn't hire smartly or manage well; they just threw numbers of people at the problem (and got predictably bad results). With good management, a team of 50 should be able to provide what Zoom provides.
- ziyao_w 7y ago
  Yeah, moments after replying I realized there is a more charitable read :-) Of course, with this read comes the age old question of "I can build Google/FB with 20 good men, what are they doing?"
  - fxtentacle 7y ago
    The answer might be that truly good people are not willing to work for FAANG, so they have to make do with 100 so-so instead.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > Of course, with this read comes the age old question of "I can build Google/FB with 20 good men, what are they doing?" Well, this would explain Google's pattern of constantly churning out new products on the theory that hey, maybe someone somewhere wants it. If you need 20 people to run your actual operations but you've hired 20,000 people, what are the other 20,000 people supposed to do?
jtdev 7y ago
For one product...? I’m sure they have a great deal of internal software and versions for numerous OS and platforms - but we’re not talking about a company with hundreds of consumer facing software products.
013a 7y ago
To be more clear, I meant "it can't only be development and QA". Meaning, there has to be something else included in that number that is not traditional R&D. Also, to be clear: the statement is meant from the perspective of, how do they have that many employees (what are they all doing); not "why" do they have that many (which, while seemingly very large, I am not in a position to judge), nor meant to be a slander against outsourcing R&D work to China (though, to be crystalline clear, I inherently trust Zoom less because of this, just like I trust companies who base or outsource R&D to Australia less because of Australia's laws on these matters).

blunte 7y ago

I didn't read it as suggesting it was "shady business". I read it as an insinuation that the company didn't know what it was doing from the top down, so they didn't hire smartly or manage well; they just threw numbers of people at the problem (and got predictably bad results). With good management, a team of 50 should be able to provide what Zoom provides.

ziyao_w 7y ago
Yeah, moments after replying I realized there is a more charitable read :-) Of course, with this read comes the age old question of "I can build Google/FB with 20 good men, what are they doing?"
- fxtentacle 7y ago
  The answer might be that truly good people are not willing to work for FAANG, so they have to make do with 100 so-so instead.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > Of course, with this read comes the age old question of "I can build Google/FB with 20 good men, what are they doing?" Well, this would explain Google's pattern of constantly churning out new products on the theory that hey, maybe someone somewhere wants it. If you need 20 people to run your actual operations but you've hired 20,000 people, what are the other 20,000 people supposed to do?

jtdev 7y ago

For one product...? I’m sure they have a great deal of internal software and versions for numerous OS and platforms - but we’re not talking about a company with hundreds of consumer facing software products.

013a 7y ago

To be more clear, I meant "it can't only be development and QA". Meaning, there has to be something else included in that number that is not traditional R&D. Also, to be clear: the statement is meant from the perspective of, how do they have that many employees (what are they all doing); not "why" do they have that many (which, while seemingly very large, I am not in a position to judge), nor meant to be a slander against outsourcing R&D work to China (though, to be crystalline clear, I inherently trust Zoom less because of this, just like I trust companies who base or outsource R&D to Australia less because of Australia's laws on these matters).