These statistics are relevant to Paul Graham's recent essay. They show that the number of firms with large numbers of employees is growing faster than the numb

These statistics are relevant to Paul Graham's recent essay. They show that the number of firms with large numbers of employees is growing faster than the number with small numbers of employees. The years covered by the data are 1988-2001; it would be better to have more recent data, and also to have data broken down by field. It's possible that the US Census Office (which is the source of these data) has more recent figures, but I haven't checked. With these limitations understood, the data here still contradict the essay's assumption that there is a trend toward smaller companies.