[best_one_there]

Basically all of an actual software company is bullshit jobs unrelated to the core product like legal, marketing, investor relations, HR, maybe even developers for R&D etc.

Running a website doesn't require that many people.

I've worked at companies with 4 developers and 30+ "other stuff". The company would not be profitable and we would not get paid without them, but the actual product would work just fine if we wanted it to.

[jahewson]

Anecdotally, I’ve never met anyone who thought this way who’s product didn’t suck.

[best_one_there]

It's not an opinion.

Legal is very useful in the general case, but if you're an anonymous torrent site operator who fully intends to ignore the law anyway it's a waste of time.

[ebiester]

I don't understand this.

If you build a system for resilience, it should not take significant effort to maintain. You should be able to keep the lights on with 10-20% of the engineering team. The rest is growth.

Growth may be making the product better, creating new product lines, or improving the scalability - for example, allowing larger numbers of users or entries. However, you can make the choice to make a well constrained product that serves a valuable use but doesn't need growth. Consider Bingo Card Creator, for example.

[lamontcg]

> If you build a system for resilience, it should not take significant effort to maintain. You should be able to keep the lights on with 10-20% of the engineering team. The rest is growth.

After 10+ years you always see the operational demand increase because of all the necessary edge conditions you build up (backcompat and whatever else).

[ebiester]

Does the cost of change increase, or the cost of maintenance, or the cost of keeping it on?

Yes, the cost of change by definition increases with the complexity. I don't think that is in contention. Why is it changing for any other reason that you're growing (or trying to stave off decline?) For internal tools, change may be a function of external business pressures (like a supplier going out of business, requiring changes in an internal tool), but that is asking for new software.

As you add libraries, the cost of maintenance increases because the surface area of security increases. However, short of major changes (React, Rails, Etc), this feels like it's not moving outside the 10-20% range.

Then, there's the cost of keeping it on.

[George83728]

Stack Overflow seems to still be running well.

[raincole]

> bullshit jobs unrelated to the core product like legal, marketing, investor relations, HR, maybe even developers for R&D etc.

Wow. You think legal, marketing, investor relations are all bullshit jobs...?

Just wow.

[kuschku]

If you're running a community funded website, you don't need any of this overhead. In the 90's, pretty much the entire internet ran without these jobs.

Sure, they're necessary if you have an actual company, but the point is that you can run a website without a company.

[best_one_there]

If you're not an official company with a legal presence, yes.

A lot of seriously dense replies to my comment, seemingly wilfully misunderstanding.

_Obviously_ the legal department at an actual company is not bullshit.

[Zanneth]

Try working at a big company for a little while.

[vdnkh]

Peak HN moment

[budoso]

Love that you excluded HR

[m00dy]

No one needs HR.

[afterburner]

C-level execs love their on-message HR.

[fknorangesite]

> The company would not be profitable and we would not get paid without them

Seems their jobs aren't bullshit, then, are they?

[hirako2000]

Referring to the developers, not the bullshit workers running around them.

[best_one_there]

For a real company, sure!