Sounds a bit like the plot of a Bond movie...a bad Bond movie, sure, but it would have more plot than the last one.
I wonder how they would be able to afford 300 staff for 600 programmers? I know they'd be cheap programmers, but still, add on an extra half a salary (of a chef or cleaner or whatever), plus food costs, making sure the boat doesn't sink etc...it seems like it would end up costing quite a lot.
I wonder how they would be able to afford 300 staff for 600 programmers?
Easily, I expect. You can see this sort of thing in any industrial town. For n workers at the factory, there are n*m employed in jobs ranging from suppliers of components to making sandwiches and babysitting. Usually m>1, if they can do it at 0.5 they're being remarkably efficient.
1. They're not bound by any US minimum wage laws, so any wages will work. I expect most of the staff would be people willing to work for food, anything above that is a bonus.
2. They'll be able to pay their workers less since they're taking care of food & housing & health care.
3. Most offices have a lot of overhead... rent, insurance, janitors, etc.
At the end of the day, I think 300 staff being paid barely livable wages would be a small fraction of the cost. The bigger problem I think would be convincing clients this boat operation was a better deal (and not made up).
Maybe the 300-strong staff will not only attend to the "needs" of the 600 programmers, but also run an offshore casino and an offshore brothel in parallel. After all, 1 staff member for each pair of programmers should leave a lot of the staff idle, right?
It looks like they haven't updated their website since 2005.