Comment by registeredcorn

> What on earth do you do with that many devs on a project like Messenger?

The pessimist in me says that at least part of the intent isn't about what they do, but rather about who they work for.

Assume you can afford to hire unnecessary amounts of employees. Is it more cost effective to:

a) Hire them and have them essentially sit around, floundering

b) Not hire them, allowing competitors the chance to hire them to work on something that could be of importance

Sure, you could hire them and devote them to working on other projects, but there are also risks and costs associated with that. If you have already budgeted with X, Y, and Z for however many quarters, it may not make good sense to green light additional projects. Too many balls in the air adds extra complexity for middle management, which impacts their ability to communicate the state of things to upper management.

Reduce access to resources available to the enemy by hoarding what you can. When the stock price looks like it might take a hit, toss the excess.