Facebook wants to double the number of faces on the payroll

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to increase the company's head count by as much as 50 per cent this year. The young founder said in an interview with Bloomberg that since there are a significant number of engineers and developers looking for work, Facebook - still flush with venture funding, and with revenues on the rise - can scoop them up.

As you may recall, Facebook had aimed to hit 1,000 employees by the end of 2008, but the market crash stalled that aim. The company currently has 1,000 employees, the Bloomberg article said.

But Zuckerberg also said he's trying to keep down costs so the company can finally achieve profitability. Facebook has been keeping a lid on employee perks for some time now, even though it does feed its minions for free, Google-style.

"The thing I want to remind people of is we're way closer to the beginning than the end," Zuckerberg said in the Bloomberg interview, published on Monday, explaining why Facebook moved to a stripped-down, concrete-walled office building when it needed a bigger headquarters. "A lot of times buildings can be a signal that you've made it. I would rather that our building feels much more like a very large garage."

Not everything he said was tinged with humility: he did confirm that he eventually hopes Facebook will have a billion users. Right now, it's more than a quarter of the way there.

Original article: Facebook's hiring like crazy again from silicon.com