Valve Makes More Money Per Employee Than Amazon, Microsoft, and Netflix Combined (techspot.com) 26
jjslash shares a report from TechSpot: A Valve employee recently provided PC Gamer with a rough calculation of the company's per-employee income, revealing that Valve generates more money per person than several of the world's largest companies. While the data is a few years old and doesn't account for some significant recent trends in the tech sector, Valve's ranking in this metric likely hasn't shifted much over that time. Exact figures for Valve's per-hour and per-employee net income remain redacted. However, a chart from 2018 confirms that Valve's per-employee income exceeded that of companies like Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Alphabet/Google, Microsoft, Intel, and Amazon. Facebook ranks second with a high revenue per employee of $780,400 annually, or $89 per hour, surpassing competitors like Apple and Microsoft due to its relatively smaller workforce of under 70,000. Amazon, by contrast, with over 1.5 million employees, earns significantly less per employee at $15,892 annually, or $1.81 per hour.
Further reading: Valve Runs Its Massive PC Gaming Ecosystem With Only About 350 Employees
Further reading: Valve Runs Its Massive PC Gaming Ecosystem With Only About 350 Employees
Valve doesn't have many employees (Score:3)
Supposedly they have around 350.
Re:Valve doesn't have many employees (Score:4, Interesting)
What I hear from the kids is Valve doesn't have much in the way of thought police, so they can stay lean.
It's kinda silly for TFA to compare Amazon drivers with Valve engineers, though.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure it's the fact that they primarily make money from other people's work and that Steam is pretty mature.
The Steam store has minimal development, and I imagine at this point is relatively easy to scale.
Facebook at number 2 also doesn't have physical goods.
Apple Haas physical goods, but they're high margin.
Amazon fulfills low margin physical goods.
Though I suspect if Amazon split off AWS it'd look more like apple or Facebook.
Facebooks biggest hurdle is privacy protections, they make 3x per user
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure it's the fact that they primarily make money from other people's work and that Steam is pretty mature.
They primarily make money providing a service to others through work they put in themselves. They created a popular store front, they maintain it, that provide servers for distribution, they provide DRM, APIs, review systems, matchmaking services, social features, overlays, guides, forums, etc.
To say they make money from other people's work is The Dumbest Take (TM).
Re: (Score:1)
> What I hear from the kids is Valve doesn't have much in the way of thought police, so they can stay lean.
Thought police are in the steam community :-). I see them the minute someone posts an issue with Steam. They immediately show up explaining how it isn't really a problem. I have never seen this so much in any other forum.
Re: (Score:3)
I have been on the other side of this a couple of times. What happens in the Steam forums that there are a lot of complainers that often do not even own the game they are complaining about. There is a lot of lying. There are a lot of people that do not understand technology. So, at least for the games I occasionally look at the forums, the "issues" are often not actually issues or a problem between keyboard and chair.
It's not thought police, but being privately held (Score:2)
What I hear from the kids is Valve doesn't have much in the way of thought police, so they can stay lean.
Thought police?...no Valve has a parasitic rent-seeking business. It's not lack of censorship/thought-police, it's a lack of Wall Street and Private Equity ruining them as well as just a good business model in that their users love them, they have little competent competition, and they collect hefty fees from other people's work.
It's easy to fudge the number (Score:2)
If companies care about average revenue per employee (ARPE), they fudge it by having a pile of "consultants" on "rolling contracts" who technically aren't employees. A "rolling contract" typically requires four weeks' notice from the employer or employee to terminate. Pay is based on the number of days you work, with no paid leave, but a higher pay rate than a salaried employee. It usually costs the company more, but it keeps the ARPE number high for the reports.
Does this matter? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
But the exact figure is "redacted" (Score:2)
Per TFA, the Valve numbers are "redacted" but the other companies' numbers are visible.
So ... yeah, the claim is that Valve beats out these other companies (including Facebook) but there are no numbers to back it up.
Color me (as yet) unconvinced.
I believe it. (Score:1)
They charge a whopping 30% commission to sell through their store. And it's a digital store, no brick-and-mortal costs to speak of!
That is almost a third. This is basically highway robbery.
They are rolling in it!
Re: (Score:2)
Brick n mortar stores used to charge 40% to stock physical copies. Compared to that, selling on Steam was a bargain.
Steam is due for a change, though.
Re: (Score:2)
They're not a monopolist and there are plenty other digital shops around, nobody is forced to use Steam and they don't enforce any exclusivity, apart for Valve games, obviously.
Ask yourself why gamers prefer Steam though.
Skins (Score:3)
How much do those (underage) skin-gambling schemes bring in for Valve? The problem seems to be back in the spotlight again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Other than those for CS:GO, none. Valve do not take commission from in game sales from other people's property. Give the numbers in TFS, the fact that valve has about 350 employees, and that estimates of their peak skin revenue during the CS:GO introduction was around $100m and estimates from a quick google that it's down significantly since the introduction, the answer is: a small fraction of their profits.
24 hours a day? (Score:2)
The reported amount per hour assumes employees work 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
These businesses operate 24 hours a day. This report isn't about how much employees get paid for their time. It's about revenue per headcount which can be broken down into per hour for every employee on the books.
clickbaity (Score:1)
The actual money per employee isn't actually mentioned so saying it's more "Than Amazon, Microsoft, and Netflix Combined" is clickbaity in my opinion. The actual number could be $90 per hour or just slightly more than Facebook (#2) for all we know. I doubt it's more than $210 per hour which would be what the others "combined" implies.
As an aside, I worked at a startup where the per income was over $1m. It's fairly common for a highly functioning small tech company.
Re: clickbaity (Score:2)
Load of Shite, claiming it w/o showing data.... (Score:2)
I make more per hour than some of these companies (Score:2)
What does that prove?
It's easier for a small company to make more per hour per employee, than a large company.
It's kind of like saying that some small company is growing faster than Apple or Google. That's easy when you're small.