Twitter this afternoon released its S-1 IPO filing into the public domain, revealing the previously closely-guarded secrets of its business for the first time. While the numbers help us assess Twitter's strengths and weaknesses as a company, they're also ripe for fun comparisons.
Twitter's forthcoming IPO will be the biggest since Facebook and — fair or not — puts Twitter in tech's most elite club. Going forward, the company will play up its subtle transformation into a powerful advertising machine, so it's only fair to see how they stack up against tech's biggest public companies of the past few years. Based on figures from the S-1, we calculated Twitter's revenue per employee to see how the fledgling company compares with its peers. As it stands, they've got a long way to go.
Google - $1,120,664
2012 Revenue: $50.18 billion
Employees: 44,777
REVENUE PER EMPLOYEE: $1,120,664
Facebook - $962,445
2012 Revenue: $5.1 billion
Employees: 5,299
REVENUE PER EMPLOYEE: $962,445
Yahoo - $433,043
2012 Revenue: $4.98 billion
Employees: 11,500
REVENUE PER EMPLOYEE: $433,043
Zynga - $413,793
2012 Revenue: $1.2 billion
Employees: 2,900
REVENUE PER EMPLOYEE: $413,793
LinkedIn - $231,428
2012 Revenue: $972 million
Employees: 4,200
REVENUE PER EMPLOYEE: $231,428
Groupon - $200,505
2012 Revenue: $2.3 billion
Employees: 11,471
REVENUE PER EMPLOYEE: $200,505
Twitter - $158,500
2012 Revenue: $317 million
Employees: 2,000
REVENUE PER EMPLOYEE: $158,500
Note: Figures are rough calculations based off publicly available information.