[sonthonax]

600 people on a median 200k salary in New York, when including taxes and obligatory benefits is about $150 million dollars a year just in payroll. This is an enormous spend. Unlike a game studio or a software company like Adobe, these people are all operational cost centres, they're not the bread and butter of the firm.

In a true software firm, more capital invested in headcount loosely means more features which is what drives sales. Here you can attribute a per employee profitability. When you hire more employees at a tech firm, the expectation is that you become more profitable.

At a non-tech company like a newspaper, technologists are a cost centre, you invest in technology in order to be more efficient, and hire as few people as possible.

Of course some technologists at the NYT will be profit centres. like those who work on advertising operations and games. But the NYT at its core is a news firm, it makes money on its influence and prestige which is driven by its journalism. Writers and content creators are the profit centres, everything else is a cost of doing business.

[lallysingh]

"true software firm" this outlook is 20 years out of date. Software is everywhere, and a major part of strategic advantage for companies in almost every industry.

NYT annual revenue is $2.47B (https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/nyt/revenue/) with 5,900 employees. $150M/yr, 600 employees for their Tech headcount doesn't seem like a huge proportion.

Edit: Avg Revenue/Employee is $425,170