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AirBnb was doing about $4 billion in revenue per year before the crash with 7,500 employees. That's about $500k revenue per employee, which is on the high end o

AirBnb was doing about $4 billion in revenue per year before the crash with 7,500 employees. That's about $500k revenue per employee, which is on the high end of tech industry standards. How is that bloated?

sachdevap 6y ago
Is revenue per employee some sort of standard measure in the industry?
- booi 6y ago
  In general yes but obviously nuanced. Gives you a sense of scalability
  - user5994461 6y ago
    Well, it's a philosophical conundrum. If a business has enough money to hire more people (revenues per employee is proxy). It should do so as long as it can recoup the investment. If a business already has thousands of people sitting around doing nothing, should it continue to hire more? There are a near infinite amount of small optimizations and extensions in global businesses that can pay for themselves, so technically it should always hire... but should it really?
- jedberg 6y ago
  It is now. It started when Facebook would make a really big deal about their productivity per employee as a way of showing the incredible efficiency of their technology. I worked at reddit at the time, and we laughed because ours was double Facebook's, despite the fact that we weren't even doing very well. But we also had very few people. So the calculation doesn't really work at very small numbers, and also doesn't account for expenses.
  - julianeon 6y ago
    There's been some talk about how reddit is seriously undervalued, and I'm leaning more towards believing it, now. I know when I'm looking for an authoritative answer to something I often append 'site:reddit.com' to my search - and I think younger generations are, if anything, moving more in that direction.
kippinitreal 6y ago
Is that $4 billion in bookings or only their take? If it's the latter, then their "real" revenue per employee is much lower. For marketplaces it seems disingenuous when they use the top-line number for revenue given that they can only increase their rake so much.
- dmode 6y ago
  Airbnb booking is north of $40bn
  - user5994461 6y ago
    source? highly doubt that.
    - cwrichardkim 6y ago
      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbnb-results/airbnb-records-30-growth-rate-in-first-quarter-on-booking-strength-source-idUSKCN1V700L https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbnb-results/airbnb-rec... $9.4B 2019Q1, Q3 is historically highest so this checks out (disclosure: Airbnb employee)

sachdevap 6y ago

Is revenue per employee some sort of standard measure in the industry?

booi 6y ago
In general yes but obviously nuanced. Gives you a sense of scalability
- user5994461 6y ago
  Well, it's a philosophical conundrum. If a business has enough money to hire more people (revenues per employee is proxy). It should do so as long as it can recoup the investment. If a business already has thousands of people sitting around doing nothing, should it continue to hire more? There are a near infinite amount of small optimizations and extensions in global businesses that can pay for themselves, so technically it should always hire... but should it really?
jedberg 6y ago
It is now. It started when Facebook would make a really big deal about their productivity per employee as a way of showing the incredible efficiency of their technology. I worked at reddit at the time, and we laughed because ours was double Facebook's, despite the fact that we weren't even doing very well. But we also had very few people. So the calculation doesn't really work at very small numbers, and also doesn't account for expenses.
- julianeon 6y ago
  There's been some talk about how reddit is seriously undervalued, and I'm leaning more towards believing it, now. I know when I'm looking for an authoritative answer to something I often append 'site:reddit.com' to my search - and I think younger generations are, if anything, moving more in that direction.

kippinitreal 6y ago

Is that $4 billion in bookings or only their take? If it's the latter, then their "real" revenue per employee is much lower. For marketplaces it seems disingenuous when they use the top-line number for revenue given that they can only increase their rake so much.

dmode 6y ago
Airbnb booking is north of $40bn
- user5994461 6y ago
  source? highly doubt that.
  - cwrichardkim 6y ago
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbnb-results/airbnb-records-30-growth-rate-in-first-quarter-on-booking-strength-source-idUSKCN1V700L https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbnb-results/airbnb-rec... $9.4B 2019Q1, Q3 is historically highest so this checks out (disclosure: Airbnb employee)