6 ms·

It would show a decoupling between revenue and headcount, which is certainly bad news for tech workers. Meta's revenue in 2022 was 35% higher than 2020, 65% hig

It would show a decoupling between revenue and headcount, which is certainly bad news for tech workers. Meta's revenue in 2022 was 35% higher than 2020, 65% higher than 2019. If tech companies have found a way to simultaneously increase revenue and decrease headcount, the future of employment in tech would not be as rosy as its past. https://www.statista.com/statistics/268604/annual-revenue-of-facebook/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/268604/annual-revenue-of...

whiplash451 4y ago
There’s significant latency between hiring and revenue. There’s probably some Elon effect happening here too (“if he can do it, I should be able to do it too!”)
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  Facebook should go all in, cut 80% out... "If you're not trying to run some sort of glorified activist organization and you don't care that much about censorship, then you can really let go of a lot of people, turns out," -- Elon Musk..
  - vkou 4y ago
    "Based on current trends, probably close to zero new cases in US too by end of April" -- Elon Musk, 2020 "I think we will be feature complete — full self-driving — this year," in a podcast interview. "Meaning the car will be able to find you in a parking lot, pick you up and take you all the way to your destination without an intervention, this year." -- Elon Musk, 2019 He says a lot of self-serving shit, there's no reason to cite him like an Oracle of Delphi.
    - saalweachter 4y ago
      To be fair, the Oracle of Delphi was probably getting high on volcanic fumes, so she likely didn't do much better.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      And let's not forget this classic from October 2019: "Next year for sure, we will have over a million robotaxis on the road. The fleet wakes up with an over-the-air update. That's all it takes."
RhodesianHunter 4y ago
Of course you can't make that case unless the growth in revenue continues as such.
majormajor 4y ago
Things happen based on rates of change now, not just totals. 2021 was an abnormally high jump in revenue from 2020 for Meta. 2022 was a drop in revenue, but roughly a return to trend (there's a quite linear line from 2016 to 2022 revenue-wise). It looks like they hired based on a wrong guess about Covid revenue growth acceleration being a longer-lasting thing than it was, and now that their revenue growth path is back to their old trend, they can't justify all of that.
oxfordmale 4y ago
In one of my previous company, there was a "keeping the light on" plan. It specified the minimum number of people needed to run the company. However, CEO was clear this was just managed decline and not a viable mode of operating the business. It allowed the company to meet regulatory obligations. However, overtime, customers would leave because of the poor service. Meta can likely run effectively with even less Engineers. However, the lack of exciting projects will prevent them from attracting top talent. Overtime their product offering will become less interesting than their competitors. Napster, Tumblr and Yahoo are still around, however, they are a shadow of what they once were.
- svachalek 4y ago
  I suspect Twitter is also "dead walking" at this point.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Did Twitter need to be more than keep the lights on? I thought HN's refrain 2 years ago was how ridiculous it was that a simple product that didn't need to add features had a large headcount + how many businesses would be better off running stable instead of for growth. Well, here we go.
    - nawgz 4y ago
      I think it would be a pretty disingenuous argument that Musk's leadership is closer to "stable" than what was happening before, which is probably why you're the only one even alluding to it.
      - ethbr0 4y ago
        In terms of headcount. No need to argue against a person, instead of the objective scenario I proposed.
      - ipaddr 4y ago
        They are finally not losing money. Things are better at twitter and stable. And they are not as funded by advertising which is a win for many
acchow 4y ago
Most of the headcount is to maintain an advantage over competitors in a competitive market, thus ensuring future revenues. It's mostly not for this year's revenue. Related to this, the government now requires accounting Software Developer salaries to be amortized over 5 years, instead of all being booked in the year you pay them. Edit: oops, the R&D portion of SWE salaries. Edit2: Related to ensuring competition, this means that if your competitors slow down then you can too. If your competitors lay off, then you probably can to.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  *The R&D portion of software developer salaries.
- giovannibonetti 4y ago
  > Related to this, the government now requires accounting Software Developer salaries to be amortized over 5 years, instead of all being booked in the year you pay them. This is being discussed in another thread [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35614313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35614313
CubsFan1060 4y ago
This ignores other factors. Like the push into the money losing Metaverse or the impact of Ask App not to track.
paulddraper 4y ago
Well, that is the end game at some point. Not many companies have eternal R&D. At some point they move to exploit over explore.

whiplash451 4y ago

There’s significant latency between hiring and revenue. There’s probably some Elon effect happening here too (“if he can do it, I should be able to do it too!”)

phpisthebest 4y ago
Facebook should go all in, cut 80% out... "If you're not trying to run some sort of glorified activist organization and you don't care that much about censorship, then you can really let go of a lot of people, turns out," -- Elon Musk..
- vkou 4y ago
  "Based on current trends, probably close to zero new cases in US too by end of April" -- Elon Musk, 2020 "I think we will be feature complete — full self-driving — this year," in a podcast interview. "Meaning the car will be able to find you in a parking lot, pick you up and take you all the way to your destination without an intervention, this year." -- Elon Musk, 2019 He says a lot of self-serving shit, there's no reason to cite him like an Oracle of Delphi.
  - saalweachter 4y ago
    To be fair, the Oracle of Delphi was probably getting high on volcanic fumes, so she likely didn't do much better.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    And let's not forget this classic from October 2019: "Next year for sure, we will have over a million robotaxis on the road. The fleet wakes up with an over-the-air update. That's all it takes."

RhodesianHunter 4y ago

Of course you can't make that case unless the growth in revenue continues as such.

majormajor 4y ago

Things happen based on rates of change now, not just totals. 2021 was an abnormally high jump in revenue from 2020 for Meta. 2022 was a drop in revenue, but roughly a return to trend (there's a quite linear line from 2016 to 2022 revenue-wise). It looks like they hired based on a wrong guess about Covid revenue growth acceleration being a longer-lasting thing than it was, and now that their revenue growth path is back to their old trend, they can't justify all of that.

oxfordmale 4y ago

In one of my previous company, there was a "keeping the light on" plan. It specified the minimum number of people needed to run the company. However, CEO was clear this was just managed decline and not a viable mode of operating the business. It allowed the company to meet regulatory obligations. However, overtime, customers would leave because of the poor service. Meta can likely run effectively with even less Engineers. However, the lack of exciting projects will prevent them from attracting top talent. Overtime their product offering will become less interesting than their competitors. Napster, Tumblr and Yahoo are still around, however, they are a shadow of what they once were.

svachalek 4y ago
I suspect Twitter is also "dead walking" at this point.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  Did Twitter need to be more than keep the lights on? I thought HN's refrain 2 years ago was how ridiculous it was that a simple product that didn't need to add features had a large headcount + how many businesses would be better off running stable instead of for growth. Well, here we go.
  - nawgz 4y ago
    I think it would be a pretty disingenuous argument that Musk's leadership is closer to "stable" than what was happening before, which is probably why you're the only one even alluding to it.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      In terms of headcount. No need to argue against a person, instead of the objective scenario I proposed.
    - ipaddr 4y ago
      They are finally not losing money. Things are better at twitter and stable. And they are not as funded by advertising which is a win for many

acchow 4y ago

Most of the headcount is to maintain an advantage over competitors in a competitive market, thus ensuring future revenues. It's mostly not for this year's revenue. Related to this, the government now requires accounting Software Developer salaries to be amortized over 5 years, instead of all being booked in the year you pay them. Edit: oops, the R&D portion of SWE salaries. Edit2: Related to ensuring competition, this means that if your competitors slow down then you can too. If your competitors lay off, then you probably can to.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
*The R&D portion of software developer salaries.
giovannibonetti 4y ago
> Related to this, the government now requires accounting Software Developer salaries to be amortized over 5 years, instead of all being booked in the year you pay them. This is being discussed in another thread [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35614313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35614313

CubsFan1060 4y ago

This ignores other factors. Like the push into the money losing Metaverse or the impact of Ask App not to track.

paulddraper 4y ago

Well, that is the end game at some point. Not many companies have eternal R&D. At some point they move to exploit over explore.