GUARDIAN.CO.UK — Jan 3 — Over the past few decades, we've seen a growth of riches in a small slice of the population. YouTube became one of the most popular and fastest-growing websites with just 60 employees. Within two years Skype had signed up 53 million customers and was attracting 150,000 new subscribers every day. Yet Skype employed just 200 people. Even more remarkable is PlentyOfFish, an online dating service. Launched in Canada in 2003, the site experienced explosive growth. By late 2006, some 300,000 people were logging on to the service every day, and they were looking at about 600m pages a month. Only one person, Markus Frind, did this booming business employ. Companies like YouTube, Skype and PlentyOfFish are constructed almost entirely of software. The cost of distributing their goods or services to a new customer is essentially zero, so they can expand vastly without hiring additional employees. FULL ARTICLE @ GUARDIAN.CO.UK
