5 ms·

Seems they spent $438,346,000 on research and development. [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1713445/000162828024006294/reddits-1q423.htm https://www

by mjard 3y ago

Seems they spent $438,346,000 on research and development. [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1713445/000162828024006294/reddits-1q423.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1713445/000162828024...

pavel_lishin 3y ago
Aren't developer salaries, servers, etc., included in that? That's what I seem to recall from recent tax changes that were discussed here a few weeks ago.
- mjard 3y ago
  > Cost of Revenue > Cost of revenue consists primarily of payments to third parties for the cost of hosting and supporting our mobile applications and website. In addition, cost of revenue includes expenses directly associated with the delivery of our advertising and other services, including advertising measurement services and credit card and other transaction processing fees. Cost of revenue also consists of personnel-related costs, including salaries, benefits, and stock-based compensation. That was only $111,011,000. Edit: This is incorrect, R&D does include R&D salaries.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    Given their employee count, that would imply a fully loaded headcount cost of around $50k. No, I don't think so?
    - mjard 3y ago
      You are correct, I should have kept reading. R&D also has salaries included
- tptacek 3y ago
  Developer salaries are probably under Research & Development, further, given their employee count and likely mix of tech (it/dev/infra) to biz, that's the only line item likely large enough to house their engineering team.
kjkjadksj 3y ago
All they came up with is bog standard enshittification stuff. I could have consulted that to them for well under a hundredth of what they paid.
creatonez 3y ago
Oh no, $438 million dollars spent on research & development... for an internet forum. That is so tragic.
- jsheard 3y ago
  And after all that R&D, the only thing keeping many long-time users around is that old.reddit.com still lets you opt-out of the last 6+ years worth of R&D they have done on the interface.
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    Speaking to some mods, old. doesn’t cut it for moderation, so there’s that other side to consider. And I guess that matters more as 3rd party tools have been locked out.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  Let’s start the rumour mill on what HN spends on R&D. How many people is dang really?
  - doublerabbit 3y ago
    0, Dang is a just a brain in a jar.
    - Kailhus 3y ago
      *beep boop* Must moderate today
CobrastanJorji 3y ago
Meanwhile every actually interesting thing Reddit the company has done in my memory seems to link back to Josh Wardle, who came up with the "The Button" event and also the "Place" event, then left and created Wordle, then sold it to the New York Times for millions. They should just redirect 5% of their R&D funds to getting that guy back and letting him do whatever he wants. Or maybe keep trying to get in on the NFT craze and working to carefully ensure third party apps can't work with Reddit. That's also a choice.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Dang, didn't know he did all that pre-Wordle. I'd ask why game studios aren't eating him up, but he's probably set for life by now. Wonder what's on the horizons for him.
  - CobrastanJorji 3y ago
    Apparently he joined "MSCHF." They describe themselves as "AN ART COLLECTIVE THAT ENGAGES ART, FASHION, TECH, AND CAPITALISM." Their products run from tech startup failure collectibles (get your mini Juicero and a mini Theranos Minilab today!), to oil paintings of ML feet, to a celebrity's iPhone full of the phone numbers of other celebrities (locked, password not included). Sounds like an interesting place to work.
narrator 3y ago
Sounds like Twitter pre-Elon where 80% are woke commissars and 20% actually make the site go. That's a big pattern these days where a small group of people make everything work and generate enormous wealth then you have this huge overhang of people who find some sort of way to hang on to them by inventing and enforcing ideological purity contests. Yuval Harari wonders what we'll do with people made useless by AI. They will be activists directed by AI generated propaganda campaigns to force all the people the AI doesn't control to comply. Yup, that's the future with AI. You have a few AI researchers that program the robots and everyone else is crusading for justice and working in compliance. There jobs consist of inventing new things to be offended about and enforcing new rules to prevent their feelings from being hurt though everything they believe comes from AI generated propaganda campaigns. Same thing happens at colleges were you got like $20 million spent on salaries for senior DEI person in charge of putting tampons in men's bathrooms and such whose job mainly consists of going to meetings and finding things to be offended about[1]. [1]https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careers/virginia-taxpayers-are-spending-20-million-annually-to-employ-235-dei-staffers-at-the-university-of-virginia-some-making-587-340-per-year/ss-BB1juy5W https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careers/virginia-taxpayers-a...
- hef19898 3y ago
  Well, looking at the value of Twitter pre- and post acquisition, those 80% did do things that provided some positive value for the company.
- archagon 3y ago
  > Sounds like Twitter pre-Elon where 80% are woke commissars and 20% actually make the site go. You seriously think 80% of Twitter was “woke commissars”?
- harkinian 3y ago
  I highly doubt those 80% were working on ideological stuff. It's common in big tech companies to have too many cooks in the kitchen, and because the design process and tech stack tends to mimic an org chart, stuff gets semi-permanently more complicated as a result. There are also some teams doing projects/research that wouldn't normally make a lot of sense, but the interest rates were so low at times that companies had to stretch to do more random things. Sometimes after a change of ownership, they cut whatever they consider fat. This is Broadcom's strategy for example, acquire and cut.
spacemadness 3y ago
And the rest apparently goes to the CEO.
shrimp_emoji 3y ago
Researching on how to make the UI even worse is no easy task.
wkat4242 3y ago
I wonder how many of that is just handouts to friends' businesses under the name of "R&D". In Ireland we always joked about the business "overhead" mainly being spent on admiring the sun overhead from a tropical beach :)

by mjard 3y ago

pavel_lishin 3y ago

Aren't developer salaries, servers, etc., included in that? That's what I seem to recall from recent tax changes that were discussed here a few weeks ago.

mjard 3y ago
> Cost of Revenue > Cost of revenue consists primarily of payments to third parties for the cost of hosting and supporting our mobile applications and website. In addition, cost of revenue includes expenses directly associated with the delivery of our advertising and other services, including advertising measurement services and credit card and other transaction processing fees. Cost of revenue also consists of personnel-related costs, including salaries, benefits, and stock-based compensation. That was only $111,011,000. Edit: This is incorrect, R&D does include R&D salaries.
- tptacek 3y ago
  Given their employee count, that would imply a fully loaded headcount cost of around $50k. No, I don't think so?
  - mjard 3y ago
    You are correct, I should have kept reading. R&D also has salaries included
tptacek 3y ago
Developer salaries are probably under Research & Development, further, given their employee count and likely mix of tech (it/dev/infra) to biz, that's the only line item likely large enough to house their engineering team.

kjkjadksj 3y ago

All they came up with is bog standard enshittification stuff. I could have consulted that to them for well under a hundredth of what they paid.

creatonez 3y ago

Oh no, $438 million dollars spent on research & development... for an internet forum. That is so tragic.

jsheard 3y ago
And after all that R&D, the only thing keeping many long-time users around is that old.reddit.com still lets you opt-out of the last 6+ years worth of R&D they have done on the interface.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  Speaking to some mods, old. doesn’t cut it for moderation, so there’s that other side to consider. And I guess that matters more as 3rd party tools have been locked out.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Scoundreller 3y ago
Let’s start the rumour mill on what HN spends on R&D. How many people is dang really?
- doublerabbit 3y ago
  0, Dang is a just a brain in a jar.
  - Kailhus 3y ago
    *beep boop* Must moderate today

CobrastanJorji 3y ago

Meanwhile every actually interesting thing Reddit the company has done in my memory seems to link back to Josh Wardle, who came up with the "The Button" event and also the "Place" event, then left and created Wordle, then sold it to the New York Times for millions. They should just redirect 5% of their R&D funds to getting that guy back and letting him do whatever he wants. Or maybe keep trying to get in on the NFT craze and working to carefully ensure third party apps can't work with Reddit. That's also a choice.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
Dang, didn't know he did all that pre-Wordle. I'd ask why game studios aren't eating him up, but he's probably set for life by now. Wonder what's on the horizons for him.
- CobrastanJorji 3y ago
  Apparently he joined "MSCHF." They describe themselves as "AN ART COLLECTIVE THAT ENGAGES ART, FASHION, TECH, AND CAPITALISM." Their products run from tech startup failure collectibles (get your mini Juicero and a mini Theranos Minilab today!), to oil paintings of ML feet, to a celebrity's iPhone full of the phone numbers of other celebrities (locked, password not included). Sounds like an interesting place to work.

narrator 3y ago

Sounds like Twitter pre-Elon where 80% are woke commissars and 20% actually make the site go. That's a big pattern these days where a small group of people make everything work and generate enormous wealth then you have this huge overhang of people who find some sort of way to hang on to them by inventing and enforcing ideological purity contests. Yuval Harari wonders what we'll do with people made useless by AI. They will be activists directed by AI generated propaganda campaigns to force all the people the AI doesn't control to comply. Yup, that's the future with AI. You have a few AI researchers that program the robots and everyone else is crusading for justice and working in compliance. There jobs consist of inventing new things to be offended about and enforcing new rules to prevent their feelings from being hurt though everything they believe comes from AI generated propaganda campaigns. Same thing happens at colleges were you got like $20 million spent on salaries for senior DEI person in charge of putting tampons in men's bathrooms and such whose job mainly consists of going to meetings and finding things to be offended about[1]. [1]https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careers/virginia-taxpayers-are-spending-20-million-annually-to-employ-235-dei-staffers-at-the-university-of-virginia-some-making-587-340-per-year/ss-BB1juy5W https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careers/virginia-taxpayers-a...

hef19898 3y ago
Well, looking at the value of Twitter pre- and post acquisition, those 80% did do things that provided some positive value for the company.
archagon 3y ago
> Sounds like Twitter pre-Elon where 80% are woke commissars and 20% actually make the site go. You seriously think 80% of Twitter was “woke commissars”?
harkinian 3y ago
I highly doubt those 80% were working on ideological stuff. It's common in big tech companies to have too many cooks in the kitchen, and because the design process and tech stack tends to mimic an org chart, stuff gets semi-permanently more complicated as a result. There are also some teams doing projects/research that wouldn't normally make a lot of sense, but the interest rates were so low at times that companies had to stretch to do more random things. Sometimes after a change of ownership, they cut whatever they consider fat. This is Broadcom's strategy for example, acquire and cut.

spacemadness 3y ago

And the rest apparently goes to the CEO.

shrimp_emoji 3y ago

Researching on how to make the UI even worse is no easy task.

wkat4242 3y ago

I wonder how many of that is just handouts to friends' businesses under the name of "R&D". In Ireland we always joked about the business "overhead" mainly being spent on admiring the sun overhead from a tropical beach :)