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Comment by lanza | Hacker News Reader

This is such a weird topic. The comparison is between companies that didn't exist 20 years ago like Meta and the 50 year old industry veteran Apple. Of course Apple didn't hire as fast, they were established. That's like saying a 20 year old college student grew more over the past decade than a 40 year old engineer. Yea, that's how life works.

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What does the age of the corporations have to do with how responsibly they staff their business(es)? Also, I'd suggest that the assertion that corporations somehow all move towards responsibly managing staffing numbers warrants some supporting documentation. The article we're talking about already indicates a pretty significant example that directly contradicts what you're suggesting: Microsoft -- actually an older business than Apple, for that matter.

> Also, I'd suggest that the assertion that corporations somehow all move towards responsibly managing staffing numbers warrants some supporting documentation.

Definitely. Though it might be difficult to test properly. I expect a lot of survivor bias, with companies having a reasonable long-term strategy faring significantly better in the long run (Microsoft notwithstanding, in this case).

With age comes experience, although the variety of experiences may differ.

The "near death" variety that Apple experienced during the 90s led to a conservative fiscal culture (among the top level executives at least) compared with the rest of the tech industry.

You make a great point - although the OP does include Microsoft in the comparison.

To say that Meta is not established by this point in time is absurd. They're plenty established and have been the leader in their industry.

The age of the company isn't relevant imo.

Their business is under severe attack / pressure. From a customer, regulatory, and competition perspective. So they can’t juts coast along or juts optimize what they’ve got.

With the latest direction (metaverse), they’re hoping to pave a new future, even if it leverages their current power to bootstrap.

The age of the company would be relevant if any of the companies were less than five years old. After that, it's irrelevant.

Are you saying that Google or Meta are not “established”?

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