The government, in contrast, spends most of its headcount on oversight of its own employees and its contractors or each other.
With about $14 million in gross-margin dollars in 2012 (up > 3X year-over-year), Kickstarter could easily self-fund a doubling of its headcount (to 120) if it wanted.
The startup had bolstered its headcount to meet the demands of its much accelerated output.
Rovio added 300 staff in 2013, taking its headcount to 800 at the end of the year.
With that opportunity in mind, Playlab is planning to redevelop its Juice Cube series, increase its staff from its current headcount of 100, and open itself up as a publishing platform for smaller development studios across Southeast Asia.
And Quora will invest in its infrastructure including growing the team beyond its current headcount of 70, strengthening spam prevention, improving its relevancy-filtered home feed, and buying servers.
It has also doubled its headcount a couple of times since she joined roughly 28 months ago, and many of its employees (upwards of 43percentt) are now women, as well as engineers from more diverse backgrounds than you might see at a typical Silicon Valley startup.
Early this morning Microsoft announced that it will reduce its headcount in the wake of its acquisition of Nokia's hardware assets.
