[ProblemFactory]

Scale is part of the demand side of the supply and demand equation.

Using dkopi's example, at a company with 2M users, it's worth hiring a developer for each "penny per user per month" problem. A company with 1B users, it's worth hiring a developer for each "0.002 pennies per user per month" problem.

Or similarly, if you look at developers who work on internal tools that save other developers time. At a startup with 40 employees, each new tools developer must save everyone else two days per year. At a large company with 20 000 developers, each new tools developer must be able to save everyone else 6 minutes per year.

As the scale gets bigger, smaller and smaller problems become worth hiring people for.

[ryuker16]

Tell that to investors.

Long term Efficiency versus short term gains is the issue.

A company like google can get away with this but not most.