This is hacker news after all, lots of us are hackers that prefer non-VC boosted (nor "cryptocurrency boosted") businesses that are run a bit more lean. Although, it used to be called "Startup News" but lets just ignore that fact for a bit so we can scream at bloated companies for a bit longer.
Seriously. Everyone here seems to think every business should be a permanent bootstrapped, profitable company. If you play the venture game, which Kraken is, you need to grow fast. Typically, though not always, that means hiring people to support that growth.
With 3,700 employees, that's a revenue-per-employee of $270k.
If you are a startup, that is ok, maybe even great!
If you are not a startup, and are in tech/finance that is NOT OK.
Kraken is not a startup.
Of course, my context is the tech sector and not the scammy free-for-all that is crypto, so I may be off-base.
Their RPE is more like a struggling, dingily-lit, zombie chain of brick-and-mortar retail stores than it is a tech firm.
I know HN doesn't like metrics like RPE, but they're never wrong.
edit: just looked it up. For comparison, Binance has around 6,000 employees and around $20 billion in annual revenue which is off the charts in terms of RPE, even for oil and gas. That's a sign they need to hire more.
