It's a indication of their health, but keeping the jobs isn't a necessity to keep the company afloat. But certainly depending on the costs to fire an employee it may hold more or less significance.

They weren't the juggernauts they are now. Windows was only starting to become popular (Windows 98 was when the rollout started) and the US economy swallowed the world whole during the Clinton years, so American companies started expanding like crazy until the Great Recession. When the Xbox appeared, they weren't that important, but with the 360 they started to pressure Sony into severing what they didn't profit from and created competition to help lower game prices.

They didn't really change anything. I just wanted to clarify they weren't as big back then...

So you agree that my math IS an indicator of health?

In a way I can take it at face value and in some cases you could say that Nintendo is a lot better because their profit per employee is very high.

Profit per employee? I'm not sure what you mean by this.

This is correct regarding consumer credit.  Showing you have a proven record of paying off debts will increase the likelihood of being approved for a loan.  But you do not have to currently have debt, only the history of paying it off.

In face, the best practice is to still pay it off immediately and not carry over a balance.  Utilize up to 30% of your total credit availability (across all credit accounts) and pay it all off after the statement is billed but before interest is charged (usually called the grace period).  This maximizes your overall credit health. In this way, you don't carry over any debt yet get the full benefits of it.

You don't have to have any debt at all when you apply but, as you noted, if you don't have much of a credit and debt history, even though you have the money and the finances to easily afford the loan, they will be reluctant to provide it.

Sorry but that's a myth.  I was taught the same thing growing up but's BS.  It came about because people believed it shows you are paying but so too does paying without carrying over a balance.  But any carried over balance under 30% credit utilization has the exact same credit impact as paying the balance every month.  The only difference in now you owe more money.

You profited 1B dollars with 1000 employees or 100,000 employees... most would think the first operation is a lot better (of course the margin would be more interesting). It's similar to what you done with assets/employee

Wouldn't the first case be better?

probably but if your margins is the same or with 100000 employees have better margin? Like 1000 are all very highly paid engineers and the second lowly paid labour that end up costing less??

This is why arithmetic exists.