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I see it as four categories, from least employees to most: 1. Desperately trying to make short term cash, and are trying to do their best with fewer employees

I see it as four categories, from least employees to most: 1. Desperately trying to make short term cash, and are trying to do their best with fewer employees than needed to maintain the current product. (Twitter is here). 2. Enough staff to maintain the current product, but not significantly innovate. 3. Significantly more than needed to maintain the current product, leaving room for people to work on non-core products that may end up being the next billion dollar project, even if the vast majority flop (Most big tech companies are here). 4. Way too bloated, with not enough projects to work on or not enough revenue to justify the R&D. The problem is that outsiders have a really really hard time understanding the product complexity of half a billion+ user services. Comparing OpenAI to the social media sites that this HN post is talking about is a great example. It's a completely different product with completely different challenges than FB, twitter, threads, youtube, whatever. Another great example is people citing "day in the life" videos that are actually recruiting videos showing the brighter sides of the job. Or people citing employees who claim that the company hired them to do nothing, when in reality it's a recruiter that was hired shortly before hiring slowed.

adam_arthur 3y ago
Do you agree or disagree that techproducts today are easier to build than 15 years ago? Everything else is irrelevant. Technology drives abstractions which drive deflation by allowing fewer people to produce more goods. This has been proven and observed for thousands of years Companies can thrive while overemploying people, but eventually they get undercut by one that doesn't
- whateverman23 3y ago
  You're conflating two different topics: 1. "Its easy to find many examples of apps that were challenging to build even just 10 years ago, that are somewhat trivial now." Correct. It's easier now to build apps that we used 10-15 years ago. 2. "Do you agree or disagree that techproducts today are easier to build than 15 years ago?" Incorrect. Tech product complexity has increased in many ways in the last 15 years (and the increase in complexity is larger than the decrease in complexity we talked about above). -- Regulation. COPPA regulations strengthened significantly around 10 years ago. Europe's GDPR went into effect in like 2016. Those are just a couple popular ones. Remember when Amazon just didn't collect sales tax? Sure makes things easier! And remember, those laws are constantly changing. If NJ raises their sales tax, you better have someone paying attention. If Europe comes up with a new privacy law, you better have enough people to drop everything and implement everything that's needed. -- Scale + globalization. Myspace topped out at like 100 million active users around 15 years ago. Facebook is 30 times that size now! That scale comes with complexities most don't think about. How do you report user video ad income to the IRS-equivalent in Andorra? I don't know, but you now need to know at Facebook's scale!
  - orwin 3y ago
    I'm automating network engineering. We still hire network engineers, and while scale/regulations are big reasons why, do not forget security. This can trigger entirety new projects. Some industries still transfer their driver updates in sealed, marked usb sticks to their clients. A lot of companies invested in IOT in the past 5 years, and just recently decided they wanted all their connected stuff to go through specific Cisco routers. Security is my SWE job security.
  - HWR_14 3y ago
    Is there a giant difference in complexity between 100 million MAU and 3 billion MAU? It seems like "being present in Andorra" has the complexity, not the order of magnitude more users. That said, being present in Andorra is probably necessary to get to 3 billion MAU but not 100 million MAU.
    - whateverman23 3y ago
      > That said, being present in Andorra is probably necessary to get to 3 billion MAU but not 100 million MAU. Exactly. You know those undersea cables that Google laid? Or Facebook's controversial "Free Basic" internet program in India? At a certain point you start to run out of people, and need to go to great lengths to get more people on the internet and using your services. And then you need to start a financial relationship with those people.
- TheCoelacanth 3y ago
  An equally complex product is drastically easier to build now than it was 15 years ago, but expectations since then have risen even more drastically. A product that is competitive in the market is generally harder to build now.

adam_arthur 3y ago

Do you agree or disagree that techproducts today are easier to build than 15 years ago? Everything else is irrelevant. Technology drives abstractions which drive deflation by allowing fewer people to produce more goods. This has been proven and observed for thousands of years Companies can thrive while overemploying people, but eventually they get undercut by one that doesn't

whateverman23 3y ago
You're conflating two different topics: 1. "Its easy to find many examples of apps that were challenging to build even just 10 years ago, that are somewhat trivial now." Correct. It's easier now to build apps that we used 10-15 years ago. 2. "Do you agree or disagree that techproducts today are easier to build than 15 years ago?" Incorrect. Tech product complexity has increased in many ways in the last 15 years (and the increase in complexity is larger than the decrease in complexity we talked about above). -- Regulation. COPPA regulations strengthened significantly around 10 years ago. Europe's GDPR went into effect in like 2016. Those are just a couple popular ones. Remember when Amazon just didn't collect sales tax? Sure makes things easier! And remember, those laws are constantly changing. If NJ raises their sales tax, you better have someone paying attention. If Europe comes up with a new privacy law, you better have enough people to drop everything and implement everything that's needed. -- Scale + globalization. Myspace topped out at like 100 million active users around 15 years ago. Facebook is 30 times that size now! That scale comes with complexities most don't think about. How do you report user video ad income to the IRS-equivalent in Andorra? I don't know, but you now need to know at Facebook's scale!
- orwin 3y ago
  I'm automating network engineering. We still hire network engineers, and while scale/regulations are big reasons why, do not forget security. This can trigger entirety new projects. Some industries still transfer their driver updates in sealed, marked usb sticks to their clients. A lot of companies invested in IOT in the past 5 years, and just recently decided they wanted all their connected stuff to go through specific Cisco routers. Security is my SWE job security.
- HWR_14 3y ago
  Is there a giant difference in complexity between 100 million MAU and 3 billion MAU? It seems like "being present in Andorra" has the complexity, not the order of magnitude more users. That said, being present in Andorra is probably necessary to get to 3 billion MAU but not 100 million MAU.
  - whateverman23 3y ago
    > That said, being present in Andorra is probably necessary to get to 3 billion MAU but not 100 million MAU. Exactly. You know those undersea cables that Google laid? Or Facebook's controversial "Free Basic" internet program in India? At a certain point you start to run out of people, and need to go to great lengths to get more people on the internet and using your services. And then you need to start a financial relationship with those people.
TheCoelacanth 3y ago
An equally complex product is drastically easier to build now than it was 15 years ago, but expectations since then have risen even more drastically. A product that is competitive in the market is generally harder to build now.