[pbreit]

To get big, you have to grow your headcount. Staying lean forever will not support the kind of growth that AirBnB is currently enjoying or would like to achieve. The "lean" mentality is fine when you're searching for a business model or want to run a lifestyle business. It's suicide if you want to build a large company to service a large customer base. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to grow big. In fact, it's admirable.

[untog]

I don't think that's a global rule- look at Instagram (nothing to do with the sale, just the number of users served by a company with two employees). Obviously, AirBnb is a very different business, but it is possible to grow by orders of magnitude without also growing headcount.

[hornbaker]

It's about revenue, not user count. Money changes everything: when customers pay, they expect a different level of service.

A company's revenue per employee is a common benchmark, and is usually around $600K-$1MM or so for successful companies at or near scale, up to $2.2MM for outliers like Apple(1). A company cannot grow to $100MM revenue and higher without having a large number of employees just to manage those revenue streams, partnerships, contracts, and support issues.

I should add that Instagram had ~13 employees, not two. That is a very low number, but mobile apps are easier to scale, support-wise, than web apps – users are just less likely to bug you, especially with a free app.

(1) Comparing Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon's Revenue per Employee: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=revenue+per+employee+ap...

[true_religion]

A different level of service means customer support, it doesn't mean 10x-100x the number of developers working on the product.

So honestly, I'm curious---what is AirBnB going to do with ~1000 developers. Facebook expanded their headcount and created a whole suite of products glomped onto their original vision. I'd like to know if AirBnB intends the same and if so what are their plans.

Ofcourse, they have no obligation to blab about them early.

[pbreit]

1,000 developers? Downvote.

[pbreit]

Instagram has a few moving parts (and no revenue). AirBnB has millions (and millions in revenue).