When it had its largest workforce, in 1980, General Motors employed 900,000 people. It sold more than 4 million cars a year, with revenues approaching $66.3 billion.18 Each employee accounted for about $74,000 in sales. Now consider the biggest firms of the Exponential Age. Alphabet, which owns Google, employed about 120,000 people in 2019, against revenues of $162 billion, clocking in at $1.4 million in sales per employee.19 The overall trend is towards more valuable companies with fewer employees.
