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by mettamage 2402 days ago
Because they don't get outsized profit returns like FAANG does. FAANG is head and shoulders above any company in the US as well (someone who reads The Economist a lot told me that, I unfortunately have no source).
1 comments

The Information, a great Silicon Valley news site, keeps track of FAANG profits and revenues per employee:

"Still, even with the declines, Facebook continues to generate by far the most profits per employee among the Big Five tech companies—$141,552 in the third quarter. In second place was Apple, with $99,898 per employee. Facebook’s core advertising business carries significantly higher margins than Apple’s business, which is based primarily on hardware sales."

That's $140k of average annual profit per each and every one of Facebook's ~40k employees, not just engineers.

However Apple still takes the lead when looking at revenue rather than profit:

"On a different metric, revenue per employee, Apple tops the list at $467,445 in the third quarter, higher even than Facebook’s $410,225 in revenue per employee (see chart above). Apple’s headcount for the quarter was 137,000, including workers in its retail stores."

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/after-hiring-binges-...

Aren't those quarterly numbers? So the average annual profit per employee in FB would be about $650k?
You're absolutely right. The numbers are flabbergasting to me. It's like pumping digital oil or something.