Facebook Prepping For Massive Hiring Spree

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook plans to nearly double in size in the next year. The social network announced plans on Friday to dramatically expand its NYC operations, adding a wealth of new engineers to enhance features and write fresh code for the website that links more than 800 million users worldwide. 'We'll be adding thousands of employees in the next year,' Facebook COO Cheryl Sandberg announced from the company's New York City offices on Friday. Facebook currently has about 3,000 employees in California, Sandberg said, but just 100 in its Big Apple facility — mainly marketing staff. The company plans to expand that Madison Avenue office by opening its first East Coast engineering office." A related note from reader kodiaktau: "Facebook has bought location sharing provider Gowalla for an unknown sum of money. The folks moving from Gowalla will be working specifically on the Facebook timeline features, Facebooks next big thing that allows users to socially look backward at their social timeline."

Comments

Re:Pyramids

[schnikies79]

So? Nothing can keep growing indefinitely.

Re:Pyramids

[gcnaddict]

It's not about the growth, it's about establishing itself as a leader of datamining and analytics. That's basically all Facebook really is.

Not a good sign

[Gavin Scott]

I can recall a few companies making the "we're going to double the number of employees in the next year" kind of announcement over the last few decades, but I'm trying to remember one of them that was still in business (without having collapsed and been acquired, laid off more than they hired, etc.) five years later...

G.

Re:Not a good sign

[CaptBubba]

It can work pretty well when a small company does it to open up a new production line or to meet expanding demand for an increased distribution area. I cannot think of a big mature company which has done it and managed to not implode at least partially.

However now is the time to do it, assuming the IPO rumors are true. Expanding that much when you are publicly owned can raise serious questions from shareholders about whether or not you are maximizing their return, because as you noted it often doesn't work out so well.

Re:Pyramids

[koan]

Agreed, but be sure you understand who is doing the data mining and "psych profiles".
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-57318396-17/cias-vengeful-librarians-track-twitter-facebook/

Re:Think of all the places they're not tracking

[MichaelSmith]

Bowel movements

Twitter has that covered.

go public, double your costs?

[Speare]

If they're planning on going public, headlines like this are not what Wall Street wants to hear. It sounds all positive on the outside, but doubling in size quickly means a significant increase in costs... with a lag before any of those costs bring new revenue. I hate it when stock prices go up when layoffs happen, but it's a fact of business: people are the bulk of company expenses.

People are already leaving

[Colin Smith]

The revenue will follow.
Then the budgets.
Then the employees.

Bit of a lag between each stage as reality hits.

Facebook is just a fad. "Social" is so 2011.
 

Forget that man! What happens to

[darkharlequin]

all of the information when it goes to a creditor who might claim that the privacy policy no longer applies....

Resume's

[mevets]

I wonder what they'll do with all the info on those resume's...

Re:Pyramids

[Runaway1956]

Alright - explain how Facebook is a pyramid scheme. Are people being paid to recruit more Facebook members, or what?

I'm no great fan of Facebook, but you seem to be talking about biology in a quantum physics class. Social networks might be used to create and to drive a pyramid scheme, but the network itself is not a pyramid scheme.

Re:Pyramids

[xero314]

I don't think that I would say facebook is a pyramid scheme by definition (though if you use the promise of notoriety or acceptance as your currency then maybe) but it does have the same fatal flaws as a pyramid scheme.

Facebook acquires it's revenue by sale of personal information (direct or aggregate I can't say for sure). This information has continued diminishing returns as each new bit about a person becomes less valuable once you have a significant profile. The only way to continue revenue growth, through sellable information, is to continue to gather fresh information. This can only happen by adding more people's data, not more data on the same people. More people only join if you can give an incentive to the current users to stay as members and/or have them convince their associates to join and share their information. Eventually you run out of new people, and revenue drops do to the aforementioned diminishing returns.

Facebook already knows all this so its not like I'm sharing any big secret, which is exactly why they are looking to double in size now, so that they can bring in enough fresh information (new users) sooner rather than later. The are creating their own stock bubble, and they are well aware of that.

It isn't publicly traded

[bigsexyjoe]

Just a nit. Facebook is not publicly traded. Which is actually a stroke of brilliance. Without Wall Street to answer to, the strategy can stay far-sighted. Zuckerberg might become the richest man in the world.

However, even if they go public, it is possible for a publicly traded company to not grow but just be profitable. You can shut shareholders up with dividends.

Re:It's a bubble... be careful.

[ieatcookies]

Facebook adds exactly as much value as it's customers feel they get. For some that's enormous and others it's nothing. You may hate Facebook and think it's useless but you can not deny it's popularity, it's not going anywhere anytime soon.