The people I know who are still inside (Google) seem optimistic that maybe the company is taking a pause to deal with some of its bureaucracy and internal politics issues and with people's complaints about perf. I suppose that's good.
From my perspective: They've got way too many people doing a lot of meh work and feeling really ... important about it. And it's on the whole asphyxiating the industry.
> And it's on the whole asphyxiating the industry.
My understanding was that asphyxiating the industry was always the plan.
For those who worked in industry pre-2008, one of the major drivers that allowed new startups to be so disruptive was that startups could very often compete with the then major tech companies on compensation. If there was a difference in pay, it was usually minor and could easily be made up for by better quality of life and a nice promotion in title.
Once Google and Facebook started growing it's clear they realized that every talented engineer on the market is a potential threat. As time has moved on the gap in pay between startup and FAANG and now startup and any company offering RSUs is just too large for startups to compete for talent.
I generally prefer startups to large companies, but can't find a single startup offering comp even remotely close to what I have in my current role. Unless I started to absolutely hate my current position, and found a startup that had essentially my dream role, there's no way I would seriously consider a switch.
My suspicion is that as funding for startups starts to dry up as money becomes more expensive, we'll see large, high paying tech companies start to let go of more staff and start driving comp down. When the market cools Google and similar companies asphyxiation strategy will have been completed. Startups starved of talent and finally starved of dollars will be no threat, that means they can safely reduce labor costs while maintaining market dominance.
They need to start at the top. The current phase of complacency, organizational lethargy, repeated pr disasters, people wondering wtf people are doing at Google, and general tone deafness started with the current CEO. Time for him to go. His vision is speaking in corporate cliches almost exclusively and just looking after things. If there is a grander plan other than "get people clicking ads", I have yet to learn of it. The current CEO is just riding the success of his predecessors, who for all their failings actually built a great few products and company.
The organization is a reflection of its leadership and their vision. Or lack there off. MS and Google are almost polar opposites. Google is MS under Balmer. Just failing, tone deaf, never quite doing anything right. Enter Satya Nadella and suddenly MS is re-engaging with developers, doing all the things that were simply unmentionable before, and generally delivering great share holder value. Google needs somebody like that. The current CEO is not it. He's a caretaker. Not a leader.
I'm not a shareholder; so no stake in this game other than observing what is obvious to me.
A friend did some high-end contract work for Google, and was hired many months before the project started. This person was paid a very high contractor rate to "review documents and onboarding" and was told by a director this is a common tactic that Google uses to ensure availability of high end engineers, and to prevent their competitors from hiring.
> As several of these statements blatantly contradict one another, I went back to the data and ran the same sanity check that I did with Facebook above. In other words, what if Google is using the hiring freeze as a smoke screen and only continuing with the strongest candidates, while keeping the rest on the bench?
An actual hiring freeze sends a very strong negative signal to employees and investors. To employees it says "the ship is sinking." Layoffs are right around the corner and that is absolute poison to morale. To investors it says "technical or not, we've hit a recession." Brace yourselves for impact. Google and Facebook are both advertising companies, so they are tightly coupled to the business cycle. When business spending starts to falter, they'll feel it first. And they have.
So it's not surprising that the companies themselves are far from clear about this, sending mixed messages. I expect them to continue to do so for as long as they possibly can.
The bubble has inflated so far for so long, I get the sense that even among cynical young employees and "investors" there's a sense of permanence in the positions of both companies. The thing is, those with fewer than 10 years experience have never seen the ferocity of the other side of the business cycle. When it turns, that mofo turns. Those in top management positions have seen it, and they're going to do everything in their ability to deny and evade it.
> The thing is, those with fewer than 10 years experience have never seen the ferocity of the other side of the business cycle. When it turns, that mofo turns.
I was working as a programmer during both the dotcom crash and the 2007-2008 real estate crash. I would describe these downturns as "bumpy".
But neither was catastrophic for most of the programmers I knew. Some of us moved, others found new jobs. Some of the least-skilled, including the "webmasters" who didn't know JavaScript or CSS, did wind up leaving the industry in 2001.
If you had a 1-year emergency fund, you would probably have been fine in either crash. The people who were the hardest hit were actually the people living in major tech cities, because they had the biggest concentrations of layoffs. The longest I was on the job market was about 3 months in fall 2001, but I had to move out of Boston. I got a slightly underpaid but really awesome job.
Right now, there are tens of thousands of organizations that would be revolutionized by some simple custom software. These organizations can't compete with FAANG salaries. But they'll be happy to absorb quite a few programmers. Some of the jobs will be valuable and interesting work.
So like I said, a hard crash can be bumpy. But for most professional programmers, it probably won't be catastrophic.
>An actual hiring freeze sends a very strong negative signal to employees and investors. To employees it says "the ship is sinking." Layoffs are right around the corner and that is absolute poison to morale.
I don't agree with this analysis. I'd be shocked if Google did any layoffs (though it's always possible) instead of just freezing hiring and letting natural attrition happen for a while. As for the signal to employees, there are so many employees already that I imagine many would be agree that the company is too big. It doesn't mean that the ship is sinking, just that they don't need an infinite number of employees. And Google's products are so dominant that you can't really believe the business is failing.
Now, FB on the other hand... I'd feel a lot more antsy, yeah. Their business doesn't feel nearly so stable.
> To employees it says "the ship is sinking." Layoffs are right around the corner and that is absolute poison to morale. To investors it says "technical or not, we've hit a recession." Brace yourselves for impact
While it’s possibly true in this case, that’s definitely not always true. I’ve been in two companies that had to implement a hiring freeze because growth was too fast. Everyone understood, because nobody new each other, because half the company was just hired.
Two things that I can say with certainty I've heard literally every single one of the ~25 years I've been in this game:
1. "We're in a bubble!, it's only a matter of time before it all comes down"
2. "The market is hot for developers right now!"
I've been through hiring sprees and layoffs, I've had startups succeed and fail, and I don't think my experiences are exceptional in any way. Things wax and wane, trends come and go. Keep a bit of savings, live within your means, and do good work and things will most likely work out well for you in the long run.
Just an aside, that this rebranding of Marx's theory of crisis never fails to get a chuckle out of me.
In mainstream economics is presented as some magical property of the way economies work, where Marx specifically predicts cyclically economic crisis created by contradictions inherent in the structure of capitalism, the periodically build to a tipping point leading to crisis and ultimately the resolution of these contradictions.
For Marx, these crises ultimately culminate in the unavoidable collapse of capitalism. Which is where the fundamental drive to find alternatives to capitalism comes from for Marx, not because it is an ethically questionable system, but because it is one fundamentally headed towards its own destruction.
But "business cycle" sounds much better, and leaves off all that spooky "systemic problem" stuff.
Google has always recruited and interviewed independently of whether they actually have roles open that make sense for you. Earlier this year, I passed the interview and spent six weeks in "team match" before I gave up and took a role with another company. Had a friend who did the same for months for a PM role.
Just bc you're getting contacted by Google recruiters this week or interviewing doesn't mean you'll ever find a team or get a real offer.
After completing ~9 interviews (2 video interviews, 5 on-site interviews, and then was asked to complete 2 additional video interviews after mediocre on-site results), I passed Google's "hiring committee" and then was put in their team match process. Over the next 4 months I had ~4 calls with hiring managers, none of them fruitful (and not for lack of my own enthusiasm or willingness to leave my comfort zone). After this the recruiter basically said they'd be in touch if any other opportunities came up.
The process is absolutely insane and an obvious symptom of Google knowing people really, really want to work there. They do not respect the candidate at all, and then will cold email you again a year later as if you've forgotten how painful it was the first time. I'll probably end up interviewing again.
A friend of mine spent ended up spending 9 months in the Google pipeline for a PM role. During the early phases of the cycle (1 month in) he received and accepted an offer at Capital One and joined as a PM. Spent 7 months at Capital One while still interviewing for Google, and then managed to get an offer and team placement.
Surprised it took that long, but he's happy he stuck w the Google process.
Had a multi-month team matching phase followed by a 4-day exploding offer for ~50% below market and got blacklisted for a year or more when I didn't sign it. Great.
I stole this advice from a Blind post -- If one has trouble matching, one possibility is that they didn't impress the matching interviewers enough (no offense) for them to want the candidate to join. It can be helpful to treat those matching calls as interviews. Of course, it's also possible you don't see a team you like, but you gotta keep looking.
In many ways, I prefer the Meta approach where they hire you and then you spend 6-10 weeks in bootcamp and working on different teams for a week each time and then the engineer gets to decide which team they want to join (rather than the hiring manager - if the position is open, they have to take you).
It kind of makes sense to keep people in the pipeline as it were. If you shut down the whole apparatus, you have to spin it back up when hiring is unfrozen. But if you keep the machine running, you're ready to hire the instant you can.
I passed the interview (for the second time) last year and eventually turned Google down in no uncertain terms. But the last thing I was told is that the offer is good for a year — presumably not for the team I was looking at (I was being hired to a specific team which was a bit strange, perhaps?), but to go in the team match system.
Of course I'm sure it's no longer good with the hiring freeze, but the point is that Google is so heavy on the "no role needed" train that even when you're recruited for a role, you're apparently still able to turn it down and still join Google later on a whim.
True. And people can submit your resume internally. I've been rejected by Google three times (I have the letters) and I've never applied for a job there. Thanks, geniuses.
Freeze? Both me and my friend from a previous project were recently approached by G's recruiters in Poland.
I wasn't pursuing new roles at the time, but my friend figured he'd try and found that the recruiter's calendar was filled up to the brim.
He asked what's going on and she replied that she has KPI to fulfill and this is the result. He followed up with a question about compensation and got a number which was... very close to the current market rate.
This is a major shift in policy comparing to just three years ago and with Poland being a popular outsourcing destination I suspect that this is what's happening, especially that due to the Russian invasion there's additional talent from Ukraine in Warsaw.
As others have commented, this seems like a smokescreen rather than a real freeze. But as someone who wants to see every monopolistic company broken up or fail spectacularly, I think a hiring freeze at FAANGs is a great opportunity for talented people to consider growing a spine and working somewhere less big and lucrative. To people facing that choice, I would say this: The world is in a weird place right now, and you have probably in some aspect of your life realized that the status quo you have come to expect is unsustainable at best (and a death cult careening off a cliff in many cases). Being able to adapt and handle crises is rapidly becoming the most important skillset to have. Finding opportunities to cultivate it while still making a decent living is a lot less instability than people who aren't still sought-after technical talent have to deal with, and will likely serve you better than grasping at an illusory sense of stability.
My hunch is that these companies are cargo-culting their strategies. The hiring freeze is as essentially a gut reaction. If one starts with layoffs, others will follow. The real problem is that companies of the Google scale will always need new engineers for particular projects and have a surplus for others. A global freeze or even layoffs simply don't fit.
We're not in a recession. Yet. Google and Facebook are ahead of the curve and mostly using the headlines to shake things up internally right now.
It does show that the billionaires are kind of enthusiastic though about the coming recession and economic pain being inflicted on the lower classes, and getting those uppity workers a bit more under control. They're not so worried about asset prices / stock prices / sales / etc and probably correctly assume that everything will rebound just fine for them.
Very often advertising is the fist thing companies cut when they run into problems. Google and Facebook are both advertising companies and they control very large section of that market. It's possible the data they are seeing is showing them problems ahead for the whole economy.
We are by the most common definition: two quarters of negative GDP growth.
Some folks in the US are weirdly insistent that recessions are defined by the NBER -- a self-appointed group of wonks at a private and secretive non-profit. But they're just one measure, and an arbitrary one at that.
Perhaps we can discard the classic "two quarters of negative GDP growth". But if we do, then from whose perspective does a 3% drop in real wages in six months [1] (and a 4.4% YoY drop in real weekly earnings [2]) not count as a recession?
It's kind of odd that people are this shocked about this. Google and FB have frozen various roles for various periods of time over the last 2-3 years. I'm guessing they have on and off for most of their existence. I just want clued into their hiring process then.
The freezes almost always are for lower level roles only (l3 or l4) and dont REALLY impact anything since these companies are pretty slow to begin with. The people impacted by this are early career folks who are likely interviewing for general swe roles at these companies and a slew of others.
FB and Alphabet will almost always still be moving folks with specialized skills sets through their pipeline and even if "no offers are going out" a L7 machine learning engineer or security engineer or android engineer who is already matched with a team is still getting an offer.
I'm not sure I buy that they're actually on a hiring freeze, but I may be wrong. The day before it was announced I got a text from a google recruiter literally saying feel free to contact me on 8/8 (after the freeze is supposedly finished). I feel like this was definitely a show for the shareholders, and a way to drop your dead weight. Everyone seems worried about employee productivity and profitably all of a sudden, or at least they're pretending to.
My advice is only if you know what you're doing, there's always a job for you.
> Moreover, these freezes materially affect our business.
Related and slightly OT, but I didn't know that there were people actually making money off other people wanting to get into a FAANG company. Which, in retrospect, of course that it makes a lot of sense and I get it, from an economic pov, but I still find it kind of strange.
I had recently become quite bearish on these companies (especially Google and FB), this type of info only reinforces that opinion, you cannot truly innovate while you're employing people who see working there has an end in itself. Hope that monopoly-like thingie will continue to work for them (again, I'm thinking mainly about FB and Google), otherwise I see dark days ahead for these two companies.
My process with Google just stopped. No further update form the recruiter. It just went on silence. Sometimes it feels like I made the right choice not changing to Klarna early this year and staying at my current work.
Ads market may be peaking as would inevitably happen. I’m increasingly seeing google and Facebook make idiotic decisions that clearly improve ad revenue at the cost of user retention.
I recently started searching cpp documentation and the only thing that comes up is copy pasta sites. I need a new search engine, and I just deleted instagram last week. YouTube now runs multiple back to back video ads.
Maybe this is just a pause, or a momentary restructuring- but all markets peak eventually.
What's going on is there is a giant recession half-cycle heading our way and Google (don't know about FB) have teams of folks whose sole job is to forecast these cycles.
My bet is they are seeing which way the wind is turning and battening down the hatches.
I think they're trying to push down salaries, there's still plenty of hiring for technical roles. Recruiters, marketers, sales reps on the other hand..
How can large companies with high turnover like Google and Facebook afford to stop hiring engineers? Do they downsize teams, shut down projects, or something else?
A legit Google recruiter emailed me about multiple roles this week. But then, that’s just the kind of quality (none) and attention to detail (nil) I already have learned to expect from Google.
[+] [-] cmrdporcupine|3 years ago|reply
From my perspective: They've got way too many people doing a lot of meh work and feeling really ... important about it. And it's on the whole asphyxiating the industry.
[+] [-] PheonixPharts|3 years ago|reply
My understanding was that asphyxiating the industry was always the plan.
For those who worked in industry pre-2008, one of the major drivers that allowed new startups to be so disruptive was that startups could very often compete with the then major tech companies on compensation. If there was a difference in pay, it was usually minor and could easily be made up for by better quality of life and a nice promotion in title.
Once Google and Facebook started growing it's clear they realized that every talented engineer on the market is a potential threat. As time has moved on the gap in pay between startup and FAANG and now startup and any company offering RSUs is just too large for startups to compete for talent.
I generally prefer startups to large companies, but can't find a single startup offering comp even remotely close to what I have in my current role. Unless I started to absolutely hate my current position, and found a startup that had essentially my dream role, there's no way I would seriously consider a switch.
My suspicion is that as funding for startups starts to dry up as money becomes more expensive, we'll see large, high paying tech companies start to let go of more staff and start driving comp down. When the market cools Google and similar companies asphyxiation strategy will have been completed. Startups starved of talent and finally starved of dollars will be no threat, that means they can safely reduce labor costs while maintaining market dominance.
[+] [-] jillesvangurp|3 years ago|reply
The organization is a reflection of its leadership and their vision. Or lack there off. MS and Google are almost polar opposites. Google is MS under Balmer. Just failing, tone deaf, never quite doing anything right. Enter Satya Nadella and suddenly MS is re-engaging with developers, doing all the things that were simply unmentionable before, and generally delivering great share holder value. Google needs somebody like that. The current CEO is not it. He's a caretaker. Not a leader.
I'm not a shareholder; so no stake in this game other than observing what is obvious to me.
[+] [-] marcinzm|3 years ago|reply
edit: Increased clarity.
[+] [-] whydid|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smugma|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lupire|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] personjerry|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] io23joi23|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] yuan43|3 years ago|reply
An actual hiring freeze sends a very strong negative signal to employees and investors. To employees it says "the ship is sinking." Layoffs are right around the corner and that is absolute poison to morale. To investors it says "technical or not, we've hit a recession." Brace yourselves for impact. Google and Facebook are both advertising companies, so they are tightly coupled to the business cycle. When business spending starts to falter, they'll feel it first. And they have.
So it's not surprising that the companies themselves are far from clear about this, sending mixed messages. I expect them to continue to do so for as long as they possibly can.
The bubble has inflated so far for so long, I get the sense that even among cynical young employees and "investors" there's a sense of permanence in the positions of both companies. The thing is, those with fewer than 10 years experience have never seen the ferocity of the other side of the business cycle. When it turns, that mofo turns. Those in top management positions have seen it, and they're going to do everything in their ability to deny and evade it.
[+] [-] ekidd|3 years ago|reply
I was working as a programmer during both the dotcom crash and the 2007-2008 real estate crash. I would describe these downturns as "bumpy".
But neither was catastrophic for most of the programmers I knew. Some of us moved, others found new jobs. Some of the least-skilled, including the "webmasters" who didn't know JavaScript or CSS, did wind up leaving the industry in 2001.
If you had a 1-year emergency fund, you would probably have been fine in either crash. The people who were the hardest hit were actually the people living in major tech cities, because they had the biggest concentrations of layoffs. The longest I was on the job market was about 3 months in fall 2001, but I had to move out of Boston. I got a slightly underpaid but really awesome job.
Right now, there are tens of thousands of organizations that would be revolutionized by some simple custom software. These organizations can't compete with FAANG salaries. But they'll be happy to absorb quite a few programmers. Some of the jobs will be valuable and interesting work.
So like I said, a hard crash can be bumpy. But for most professional programmers, it probably won't be catastrophic.
[+] [-] aksjdhmkjasdof|3 years ago|reply
I don't agree with this analysis. I'd be shocked if Google did any layoffs (though it's always possible) instead of just freezing hiring and letting natural attrition happen for a while. As for the signal to employees, there are so many employees already that I imagine many would be agree that the company is too big. It doesn't mean that the ship is sinking, just that they don't need an infinite number of employees. And Google's products are so dominant that you can't really believe the business is failing.
Now, FB on the other hand... I'd feel a lot more antsy, yeah. Their business doesn't feel nearly so stable.
[+] [-] nomel|3 years ago|reply
While it’s possibly true in this case, that’s definitely not always true. I’ve been in two companies that had to implement a hiring freeze because growth was too fast. Everyone understood, because nobody new each other, because half the company was just hired.
[+] [-] efsavage|3 years ago|reply
1. "We're in a bubble!, it's only a matter of time before it all comes down" 2. "The market is hot for developers right now!"
I've been through hiring sprees and layoffs, I've had startups succeed and fail, and I don't think my experiences are exceptional in any way. Things wax and wane, trends come and go. Keep a bit of savings, live within your means, and do good work and things will most likely work out well for you in the long run.
[+] [-] time_to_smile|3 years ago|reply
Just an aside, that this rebranding of Marx's theory of crisis never fails to get a chuckle out of me.
In mainstream economics is presented as some magical property of the way economies work, where Marx specifically predicts cyclically economic crisis created by contradictions inherent in the structure of capitalism, the periodically build to a tipping point leading to crisis and ultimately the resolution of these contradictions.
For Marx, these crises ultimately culminate in the unavoidable collapse of capitalism. Which is where the fundamental drive to find alternatives to capitalism comes from for Marx, not because it is an ethically questionable system, but because it is one fundamentally headed towards its own destruction.
But "business cycle" sounds much better, and leaves off all that spooky "systemic problem" stuff.
[+] [-] kleinsch|3 years ago|reply
Just bc you're getting contacted by Google recruiters this week or interviewing doesn't mean you'll ever find a team or get a real offer.
[+] [-] nwsm|3 years ago|reply
The process is absolutely insane and an obvious symptom of Google knowing people really, really want to work there. They do not respect the candidate at all, and then will cold email you again a year later as if you've forgotten how painful it was the first time. I'll probably end up interviewing again.
[+] [-] ahmadss|3 years ago|reply
Surprised it took that long, but he's happy he stuck w the Google process.
[+] [-] anonymoushn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oneepic|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alasdair_|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bena|3 years ago|reply
For them that is. Sucks for you and me.
[+] [-] puffoflogic|3 years ago|reply
Of course I'm sure it's no longer good with the hiring freeze, but the point is that Google is so heavy on the "no role needed" train that even when you're recruited for a role, you're apparently still able to turn it down and still join Google later on a whim.
[+] [-] x86_64Ubuntu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daniel_reetz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tade0|3 years ago|reply
I wasn't pursuing new roles at the time, but my friend figured he'd try and found that the recruiter's calendar was filled up to the brim.
He asked what's going on and she replied that she has KPI to fulfill and this is the result. He followed up with a question about compensation and got a number which was... very close to the current market rate.
This is a major shift in policy comparing to just three years ago and with Poland being a popular outsourcing destination I suspect that this is what's happening, especially that due to the Russian invasion there's additional talent from Ukraine in Warsaw.
[+] [-] advael|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] choeger|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lamontcg|3 years ago|reply
It does show that the billionaires are kind of enthusiastic though about the coming recession and economic pain being inflicted on the lower classes, and getting those uppity workers a bit more under control. They're not so worried about asset prices / stock prices / sales / etc and probably correctly assume that everything will rebound just fine for them.
[+] [-] fenek|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nostromo|3 years ago|reply
We are by the most common definition: two quarters of negative GDP growth.
Some folks in the US are weirdly insistent that recessions are defined by the NBER -- a self-appointed group of wonks at a private and secretive non-profit. But they're just one measure, and an arbitrary one at that.
[+] [-] baby|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leereeves|3 years ago|reply
Based on what?
Perhaps we can discard the classic "two quarters of negative GDP growth". But if we do, then from whose perspective does a 3% drop in real wages in six months [1] (and a 4.4% YoY drop in real weekly earnings [2]) not count as a recession?
1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/216259/monthly-real-aver...
2: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.htm
[+] [-] robertlagrant|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlwaysRock|3 years ago|reply
The freezes almost always are for lower level roles only (l3 or l4) and dont REALLY impact anything since these companies are pretty slow to begin with. The people impacted by this are early career folks who are likely interviewing for general swe roles at these companies and a slew of others.
FB and Alphabet will almost always still be moving folks with specialized skills sets through their pipeline and even if "no offers are going out" a L7 machine learning engineer or security engineer or android engineer who is already matched with a team is still getting an offer.
[+] [-] baby|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cbanek|3 years ago|reply
My advice is only if you know what you're doing, there's always a job for you.
[+] [-] paganel|3 years ago|reply
Related and slightly OT, but I didn't know that there were people actually making money off other people wanting to get into a FAANG company. Which, in retrospect, of course that it makes a lot of sense and I get it, from an economic pov, but I still find it kind of strange.
I had recently become quite bearish on these companies (especially Google and FB), this type of info only reinforces that opinion, you cannot truly innovate while you're employing people who see working there has an end in itself. Hope that monopoly-like thingie will continue to work for them (again, I'm thinking mainly about FB and Google), otherwise I see dark days ahead for these two companies.
[+] [-] TrackerFF|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] firstSpeaker|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whimsicalism|3 years ago|reply
Turns out my recruiter had been fired.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] davidw|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lumost|3 years ago|reply
I recently started searching cpp documentation and the only thing that comes up is copy pasta sites. I need a new search engine, and I just deleted instagram last week. YouTube now runs multiple back to back video ads.
Maybe this is just a pause, or a momentary restructuring- but all markets peak eventually.
[+] [-] ur-whale|3 years ago|reply
My bet is they are seeing which way the wind is turning and battening down the hatches.
[+] [-] Mandatum|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s1k3s|3 years ago|reply
Google 7k+
Apple 2k+
Amazon 39k+
Meta 2k+
If anyone has that premium feature (I don't have it anymore), you can check how the numbers changed over time.
[+] [-] aulin|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkl95|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] natch|3 years ago|reply
Comment from kleinsch in this thread is spot on.