Thats impressive - given that Goldman's VAR each day must be massive in comparison...
GS made 3-4 times less this quarter than the same period last year though.
Nintendo makes more profit per employee than Goldman (or Google)
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Re: Nintendo makes more profit per employee than Goldman (or Google)
#12Maybe now, but just before the DS (and Wii), they weren't looking very healthy financially.
I don't think this is true. From what I know, even during the GameCube years, they were turning healthy profits.
Re: Nintendo makes more profit per employee than Goldman (or Google)
#13Key takeaway: "Nintendo is able to make so much money with so few people because it relies on outsourcing." I met a fellow who once employed over 30 people for his building construction company. Then he became one person, with the rest outsourced. Maybe he is doing better than Nintendo if one measures success as the article does.
Yes, and here's another great example of outsourcing: Vizio, the flat panel TV manufacturer had revenues of $1.9b with only 85 employees. That's $22.4m/employee in revenues. I don't know what their profit margin is though. (http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2008/company-profile.html?id=2008...)
Re: Nintendo makes more profit per employee than Goldman (or Google)
#14"Lies, damn lies, and statistics." :)
When someone says "the average employee" at an investment bank made 600K last year, or brought in 1.25M in profits, keep in mind the old joke about how, when Bill Gates walks into a bar, the average guy in that bar becomes a multimillionaire.
Every trader, salesperson, and banker has dozens of people working to support his or her work with paying clients. The support staff, which includes operations and IT, generates absolutely no revenue at all. (With possible exceptions for the small handful of people who write automated trading and risk systems.) Correspondingly, the support staff is not paid anywhere nearly as well as people who work in "producing" divisions. Notice that no one talks about the median employee, which would be a much more interesting metric.
Re: Nintendo makes more profit per employee than Goldman (or Google)
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, it would explain very well why Nintendo would never get into, say, DVD players, HDTVs and such. And Nintendo's per-capita profitability also explains why Microsoft is so desperate to break into video games, except that they just haven't been able to replicate the magic so far.
Actually, they did get into DVD players, with the Japan-only Q: http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=3886 and the Wii is supposedly going to add DVD capabilities (for a couple years now, though): http://www.nintendowiifanboy.com/2006/10/31/japan-getting-wi...
You can already add DVD capabilities through a tiny hack that works on modded and unmodded Wiis:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-...
Re: Nintendo makes more profit per employee than Goldman (or Google)
#16Nintendo are nuts. The guys at Nintendo in charge of a project I worked on never seemed to stop working, despite their night time falling into our time zone's work hours. It's pretty sad to hear that for their extended 7-day work week they're getting $90k on average.
it's not really crazy in East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea). it's more or less the norm. sacrifice everything for big corporation X and yet not expect a sizable reward within a relatively short time frame (well at least by Western standards)
I take it no one has heard of Samsung's dormitories? For the 1st 2 years of employment there as an engineer, you have to live in the company dorm with your team (sharing a room with a bunk bed with 1 team member). o yeah they also get to regulate when you can leave company grounds (like for going out on a date). it's a very dif world there...
Re: Nintendo makes more profit per employee than Goldman (or Google)
#17Key takeaway: "Nintendo is able to make so much money with so few people because it relies on outsourcing." I met a fellow who once employed over 30 people for his building construction company. Then he became one person, with the rest outsourced. Maybe he is doing better than Nintendo if one measures success as the article does.
Outsourcing is a perfect illustration of the revenue/profit per employee analysis. If a particular function your company is doing is low-value-added (i.e it can be done by companies with lower revenue per employee than yours), you should consider outsourcing that function.
Employees are the most valuable resource of most companies, and efficiently utilizing this valuable resource is the most important function of management. Managerial complexity is a super-linear function of headcount, and complexity kills productivity.
Re: Nintendo makes more profit per employee than Goldman (or Google)
#18nintendo stock is hard to buy.
that's what I thought too but you can buy it easily in the US market if you look for OTC:NTDOY
Re: Nintendo makes more profit per employee than Goldman (or Google)
#19Maybe now, but just before the DS (and Wii), they weren't looking very healthy financially.
I don't think this is true. From what I know, even during the GameCube years, they were turning healthy profits.
you're right. even when Nintendo was a dismal 3rd in the last console war with Gamecube, they were still making very healthy profits with the console. still dominating the handheld market helps too.
Before Wii, I could wrong, but I think they had about 3 billion in cash reserves.
Re: Nintendo makes more profit per employee than Goldman (or Google)
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, it would explain very well why Nintendo would never get into, say, DVD players, HDTVs and such. And Nintendo's per-capita profitability also explains why Microsoft is so desperate to break into video games, except that they just haven't been able to replicate the magic so far.
Actually, they did get into DVD players, with the Japan-only Q: http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=3886 and the Wii is supposedly going to add DVD capabilities (for a couple years now, though): http://www.nintendowiifanboy.com/2006/10/31/japan-getting-wi...
My point is that they aren't likely to do a stand-alone DVD player ...