Yeah, that's why I was careful about my wording. Without excluding the possibility that many people were truly doing nothing, I see this pattern all the time as

Yeah, that's why I was careful about my wording. Without excluding the possibility that many people were truly doing nothing, I see this pattern all the time as companies get bigger: * project is done to 85% effectiveness by <= 1 FTE * company is flush with cash, and can hire someone to backfill that last 15% * new person is not fully occupied backfilling that 15%, and therefore *finds new things to do*...which creates more projects that are done to 85% effectiveness * goto step 1 Also, of course, as companies mature, they inevitably start moving down the cost-effectiveness graph, and taking on projects with lower and lower expected value. There are all sorts of reasons for this, ranging from valid ("this effort might pay off 10x"), to pathological ("if my team doesn't grow, I don't get a promotion"). Anyway, shovel enough money into the boiler during the "hypergrowth" phase, and you can easily end up with lots of people who are all very busy, but just not productive.