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The Most Valuable Employees: Snapchat Doubles Facebook

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Startups run on huge promises with lean staff, but how do they stack up against their public peers?

We compare the world’s 11 most valuable startup—those with a valuation of at least $10 billion--with their publicly-listed peers. While public companies are required to disclose their latest employee figures, such information is not often readily available for startups. FORBES reached out to companies and used the valuation at their latest funding round according to Pitchbook.

With a lofty $15 billion valuation and only 330 employees, Snapchat tops the list with the highest valuation per headcount ratio – about $48 million per employee. That’s double the ratio at Facebook , which has the highest market cap per employee among all the public tech companies worth at least $10 billion. With similarly small staff and equally impressive valuations, WeWork and Pinterest come in at the third and fourth spots respectively thanks to their impressive $19 million and $18 million per employee.

Uber, the most valuable private startup in the world with $51 billion valuation, ranks fifth at $15 million per employee. As the company’s valuation soared in recent funding rounds, so did its employee roster. At the beginning of 2014, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said he planned to grow from 550 employees to up to 2,000 by the end of the year. The company now has over 3,500 employees worldwide, a six-fold increase over the last 18 months, as it gears up for global expansion.

Snapchat’s high valuation per employee sounds high, but bear in mind that’s not unprecedented. When Facebook bought WhatsApp, it shelled out $22 billion for a company with only 55 staff -- a cool $400 million per employee. Similarly, Instagram got about $80 million per employee from Facebook in 2012.

Compared to the hottest startups, public tech companies tend to have a lower, and perhaps more reasonable ratio of market cap per employee. That’s partially because they’re more mature, having built out sales staff and other departments young startups may forgo early on. Only Facebook’s ratio can compete with the top tech startups. The market cap to employee ratio for Google , Twitter and other top tech companies are all below $10 million per employee--although still higher than the ratios for public companies in many other sectors. Ultimately, software has proven to be one of the most headcount-efficient businesses in the world.

Here are the companies ranked by valuation (or market cap) per employee:

COMPANY NAME VALUATION/
MARKET CAP ($Billion)
TOTAL EMPLOYEES VALUATION ($Million)
PER EMPLOYEE
Snapchat 16 330  48
Facebook 265 10955  24
WeWork 10 550  19
Pinterest 11 600  18
Airbnb 26 1600  16
Uber 52 3500  15
Palantir 20 2000  10
Google 444 57148  8
Xiaomi 46 8000  6
Twitter 20 4100  5
Workday 16 4100  4
ServiceNow 12 3187  4
Didi Kuaidi 15 4000  4
Intuit 29 8000  4
DJI 10 3000  3
Adobe 42 12499  3
Microsoft 379 118000  3
PayPal 48 15800  3
salesforce.com 47 16000  3
SpaceX 10 4000  3
Flipkart 15 20000  1

Additional Reporting by Ellen Huet

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