Obviously you can do it leaner, if they couldn't they wouldn't be firing people. My point is that you shouldn't be trying to estimate based on the technical side when most of the head count is negotiating with record companies and producing podcasts. In any case I personally wouldn't be so obsessed with every company running as lean as possible, great way to have 5 people make 10 billion dollars and everyone else just gets to pound sand. In a healthy society companies should run fat to keep people employed, engaged, trained up, ready to fill in as a replacement, and lots and lots of vacation time.

> ...when most of the head count is negotiating with record companies and producing podcasts.

Can you link the source?

It does sound extreme doesn’t it!

But I wonder if they have to replicate non-dev teams in multiple countries?

I’d imagine they have to a seperate legal, promotional, marketing, sales and so on teams for each market.

Replicating these business functions quickly adds up to thousands of people employed!

As an English speaker I tend to think of music as being all in English, but each region has its own musical culture that would need addressing.

France I believe mandates a certain amount of French speaking songs.

Apples and Oranges, not from a complexity perspective but WA was majorly subsidized by VC and later FB without monetization for years.

Spotify has a completely different business model, architecture etc.

agreed. the population has probably passed an inflection point where bureaucracy is at its peak, crosscutting concerns are unavoidable, and communication chains too long and winding to be considered communication at all. but we’re talking of the genetrix of some of the modern modes of organizing work and workers. i'm more hopeful that they’ll be able to do the right thing, even if it doesn’t mean reducing workforce to the irreducible minimum.