The Pragmatic Engineer
00:10:58 · Luca Ferrari, Gergely Orosz
[00:10:58] S1: We didn't steal them. Promise. [00:10:59] S0: These these are companies that are actively looking for a buyer for some reason, either either because they're struggling or not. And I mean, it sounds like, you know, they've through the what are easy solutions. And what I thought about this well, I mean, in my view, a company that goes through painful transition and then becomes successful in the long term or a product is probably better than one that slowly dies. And we've seen recently a lot of stars that just shut down and after they couldn't find anything. So that's just, you know, I was, it's not all black and white, right?
00:11:33 · Luca Ferrari
[00:11:33] S1: No. And I think, you know, we have been dealing with this criticism for a while now, I think I understand it better than I did a couple of years ago. I will say this, to simplify, the world seems to be divided into two camps. Some people think ultimately that as long as a business can survive, it should not be made more thriving, more successful if doing so means going through a painful decision such as a layoff. Some people think that, and these people think that bringing the business from a six out of 10 to a nine out of 10, if it means going through a painful decision such as a layoff, it's evil. And then there are people who think that as long as you act empathetically, supportively, you should try to run a business in the most effective, efficient way you can. And that if doing so means going through a hard decision like a layoff, you should do it. Again, to be super supportive financially and logistically and emotionally, but still do it. We, of course, the latter view is more of free market view, the former, you can give its name. We belong in the latter camp, but if you belong in the former camp, there is nothing I can say to convince you. You will believe we're evil and call us evil. There is a difference in the underlying deep assumptions of what one should strive to do. But within the latter camp, try to do things the right way, to build the best products we can, to build the best organizations we can, to treat anybody on their way out as well as we can, to monetize a product as efficiently as we can, and be rational and scientific about it. So that's what we are. And if someone sees things more in this way, then I think they'll have an incredible experience working with us, partnering with us in any capacity. If someone sees the world in the former way, we fully respect that. It's almost a political view in a way. And it's totally fine way of looking at the world, but then they will never like us. Know, there's nothing we can say to change their minds.
00:13:35 · Gergely Orosz
[00:13:35] S0: Yeah, respect that, right? I think long as you're open with what your values are, what what you're doing, and I think, you know, for example, Netflix is a very good example. They also are known to have a very harsh culture. You know, they they have the the keeper tests regularly challenging people, but they publish this. And again, it's like they have this culture. There's pros, there's cons. And I think it's nice when you're clear about what you stand for and and and explain because again, every company will be different. It's just some companies are a bit harder to figure out because they don't talk about this. So again, the fact that we're... You're actually talking here, this this is actually helpful.
00:14:08 · Luca Ferrari, Gergely Orosz
[00:14:08] S1: We are very transparent about it. We share a lot of stuff on our website, including policies and whatnot. When we extend an offer to an applicant, we send a document called Controversial Principles, where we include seven or eight values or principles we implemented at the company that some people may consider controversial. One being that we are uncompromising on excellence, which means that we want each position staffed with a performer that's at least in the vicinity of the best possible performer we could hire. So we see the company in the same way as you would see an ambitious basketball team or football team. We really want to make sure each position is staffed with an outstanding performer. And if it means demoting someone or letting someone go, we will do so. So we tell you upfront, we're super honest about it. And again, someone who's seeking a place where everybody's trying to be absolutely great professionally will have a blast because talent density is sky high. Someone who's not seeking that sort of one food outside of your comfort zone all the time place will not like it. And I think both views are absolutely respectable and understandable. You just need to be honest about who you are. And then it can be a match made in heaven. Yeah. And by the way, it's good working at Bending Spoons, we must be doing something right. Because we have a level of unwanted team member churn that's, to my knowledge unheard of in the industry about 1% per year. [00:15:47] S0: 1% per year churn. [00:15:48] S1: Yeah. Unwanted churn. And if you look at our...
00:15:48 · Luca Ferrari, Gergely Orosz, Federico Simionato
[00:15:48] S1: Yeah. Unwanted churn. And if you look at our... [00:15:52] S0: Yeah, the glass I think we called unregulated attrition the official but yeah, people who... Yeah. [00:15:58] S1: Wow. If you look at our glass reviews, I'm not aware of many companies with such high support. But yeah, it's not for everybody. It's really not for everybody. [00:16:12] S0: Yeah, that is very, very low indeed. Yeah. So surprising because I I... We did a... I did a newsletter issue on this. I think the industry average was around seven to 10%, and then it can be higher as well depending on the stage of the company. So 1% is truly impressive. [00:16:33] S1: So Literally like a handful of people out of four fifty per year, like three, one, five, something like that. [00:16:40] S0: Well, you must be doing something right. And when you do have this type of information to to look on, that's that's actually quite helpful. I I feel more companies could look at this data because it is quite telling. And I'm assuming you have exit interviews with people who leave as well. Right? [00:16:56] S2: Should probably put this in our website somewhere. I I think I think people should know about it more. [00:17:01] S0: Yeah. To put things in perspective, could you share some hard numbers, especially engineering numbers, get a sense of where you are in terms of queries per second, revenue, the things that can help place how large and high load Bending Spoons is.
00:17:01 · Gergely Orosz, Luca Ferrari, Francesco Mancone
[00:17:01] S0: Yeah. To put things in perspective, could you share some hard numbers, especially engineering numbers, get a sense of where you are in terms of queries per second, revenue, the things that can help place how large and high load Bending Spoons is. [00:17:18] S1: So we're currently at around $700,000,000 in revenues. We've been profitable every year since we founded the company eleven years ago. We serve well over 200,000,000 monthly active users across a few dozen products. And in terms of team size, excluding the most recent acquisition of WeTransfer, we are a little over 400 right now. I think four fifty give or take. And if you include We Transfer, over 800 people work at Banish Spoons. [00:17:50] S3: We run multiple products. I think it's north of 100 digital products at the moment. [00:17:58] S0: 100 digital products, wow.