Apple's gross margin is 46% (lots of hardware), Google's is 58%, and Meta's is 83%. Meanwhile, Ford's gross margin is 8.4% and Walmart's is 25%.
I’ve never heard of any kind of worker or contractor in Capital Expenses/Balance Sheet. That’s wild.
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles don’t let you put t labor wherever you choose to ‘categorize’ them.
But you can pay consultants and buy services from “third-parties”, which moves the expense, as I described, from payroll to indirect expenses. This falls into that funny gray area for contractors—looks like a duck…
This follows into other industries with high IP-based costs rather than traditional asset-based costs. We see high margins from investment firms, consultants, banks, and SaaS companies. Basically, companies who rely on their employees knowledge to deliver products. We tend to see lower margins from auto manufacturers, construction, textile, and chemicals. The type of companies that require large asset investments and maintenance on machines and factories.
This is why Apple has pushed so hard into their "Services" offerings. The margins are incredibly high (and more predictable) compared to building and selling physical phones and computers. I can build the service once and sell it to 100 million people. For phones, I have to build each one before selling it.
https://fortune.com/longform/failed-unicorn-startups-billion...
Whatever the reason, the outcome is the same: companies held aloft on a cushion of easy money, untethered to market forces, free to pay arbitrary salaries to people easily outcompeting their neighbors who aren't so blessed.
I had this hilarious though I feel I should write down here but doubt it at the same time. ..
The best way to have a wage gap is lack of access to education or even books. Second would be to have access but not make an effort.
It makes me wonder is there is data on physical punishment. people say it is a terrible thing but I would love to put them in some loud factory conveyor belt job for a decade or so with just a few more bills than salary. To call me a sadist is to agree :p
If I just need raw output, the army of juniors is a viable solution. You might even find it’s preferable if you have many separate functions or projects or think you may flex down/up the labor expense later on.
people get a salary + a percentage of their salary in stock
If the stock is going up non-linearly, wouldn't earnings be skewed. Especially new people compared to people vesting stuff from a couple years back.
or are people getting salaries of 500k irrespective of stock? are they matching salaries to stock of other companies?
Salary negotiation consultants are a thing.
Can we please stop connecting the words easy and $500k without also discussing the difficulties and lifestyle trade-offs obtaining L6 and equivalent positions at Google and other companies?
Jesus Christ its like an entire generation of basic education went out the window when Blind was launched.