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Facebook just doesn't have many engineers. "Over 2000 employees" (wikipedia says) just isn't that many. Compared that to Google (~20,000 to 30,000?), Microsoft (~90,000), or the IRS - over 100,000, or the Pentagon - 757,000.

Facebook has an order of magnitude less than just about any other similarly sized organization. It's bigger than Wikipedia, though.



Of those 2,000 employees only about 300 are actually engineers, if I recall correctly. But the point is, I guess, more about quality then quantity.


I think the real cost is in the ~50,000 engineers* who are trying to clone Facebook, not in the ~300 who are actually working on it.

* Made up number.


If they think they can make any serious amount of money by trying to beat Facebook at their own game, they aren't so bright, I think.


Assuming that number is very high, those people wouldn't necessarily be rocket surgeons if they weren't trying to clone FB




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