Not every company needs thousands of employees to pull in billions. Some of the most profitable names in tech keep their teams small, and still manage to earn more per person than almost anyone else.

Take Tether, for example. It doesn’t make headlines like Apple or Google, but it’s handling an enormous volume of stablecoin activity behind the scenes. The company generates more than $83 million per employee, which sounds almost unreal until you realize how much of its business runs on software and constant transactions. The size of the staff? Pretty small. The reach? Global.

Valve comes next. That’s the company behind Steam, which sells video games online. It doesn’t ship boxes or stock shelves. People buy games, download them, and that’s it. Valve earns about $19 million per person working there, and it doesn’t even have 400 employees. It’s been operating like that for years, quietly.

YouTube is bigger in size, but the structure isn’t so different. Most of the videos are made by users. The platform just needs to manage what’s uploaded, sort it, and serve ads. Even with a staff in the thousands, it brings in more than $7 million for each one.

NVIDIA is further down the list, but still impressive. It’s selling hardware, specifically chips used in AI and gaming. Even with that manufacturing complexity, the company earns over $3 million per employee. Demand is high enough to make up for the extra weight.

Then there are the platforms we all use every day. Instagram makes around $2.5 million per employee. Apple and Meta land close to that too. It’s not just about hardware or social media, it’s the ability to stretch digital infrastructure without needing to double headcount.

Alphabet, which owns Google, sits under $2 million per person. Airbnb, Broadcom, and Uber are in the same ballpark. These companies are still efficient, but they rely more on people to handle operations, whether that’s rides, listings, or devices.

Further down the list, Microsoft, Etsy, Upwork, and Booking Holdings earn somewhere between $1 million and $1.3 million per worker. Even TikTok, which dominates in usage, brings in less, about $600,000 per person. And Amazon? Around $400,000. That’s the lowest in the group, but also the most labor-intensive business by far. Warehouses, drivers, customer service, it all adds up.

The common thread? Companies that run on software, platforms, or automation need fewer people to keep growing. User-generated content, digital marketplaces, cloud tools, those scale without adding bodies. The result is more revenue per employee, sometimes by a huge margin.

The fewer people it takes to run the system, the bigger the payoff seems to be.

Platforms leveraging automation, user content, and minimal staff generate unmatched income efficiency across tech’s most recognized names.

Platform Revenue per Employee ($)
Tether $83,000,000
Valve $19,000,000
YouTube $7,600,000
NVIDIA $3,600,000
Instagram $2,500,000
Lyft $2,000,000
Twitch $2,000,000
Apple $2,400,000
Meta $2,200,000
Alphabet $1,900,000
Airbnb $1,500,000
Broadcom $1,400,000
Uber $1,400,000
Upwork $1,300,000
Etsy $1,200,000
Mercari $1,100,000
Microsoft $1,100,000
Instacart $1,000,000
Booking Holdings $1,000,000
eBay $900,000
TikTok $600,000
Amazon $400,000

Note: This list includes only widely recognized platforms deemed safe for general audiences. Platforms with adult-only content or safety concerns were excluded to maintain relevance and appropriateness.

This post was edited/created using GenAI tools.

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