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OnlyFans CEO reveals the company operates with just 42 staff members, serves 400 million users

Founded in 2016 as a subscription platform and now best known for adult content, OnlyFans runs with just 42 full-time employees.

2 min readNew DelhiDec 10, 2025 09:55 AM IST

Keily Blair replied that the team was “a pretty efficient bunch,” attributing that efficiency to the company’s lack of a managerial layer (Image source: Master of Scale/YouTube)

OnlyFans chief executive Keily Blair recently revealed that just 42 employees manage the company. Speaking at the Web Summit in Lisbon in November during a conversation with the Masters of Scale podcast host Jeff Berman, Blair said the company’s intentionally lean workforce is the result of a deliberate strategy to eliminate middle-management roles. She explained the philosophy behind the approach.

Founded in 2016 as a subscription platform and now best known for adult content, OnlyFans runs with just 42 full-time employees, Blair noted. Berman remarked that it was “very powerful” for a company to bring in roughly USD 7 billion in annual revenue with such a small team. Blair replied that the team was “a pretty efficient bunch,” attributing that efficiency to the company’s lack of a managerial layer, according to Business Insider.

Detailing the hiring model, she said that the company hires in two categories: Senior talent and “hungry” junior talent. “So we hire incredibly senior talent, and then we hire incredibly hungry junior talent, and we look for attitude and aptitude in hiring rather than experience.”

She added, “And we do not have that sort of squidgy layer of middle management in the middle, because nobody’s ever had a really good middle manager in my experience.”

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Blair said she rejects the traditional corporate view that leaders should be evaluated by the size of the teams they lead. “You can be a team of one and deliver exceptional results, and that will be so valued.” She emphasised that OnlyFans offers no formal managerial career track and that every employee operates as an individual contributor.

Blair, who became CEO in 2023 after a career in law, also said the platform now serves around 400 million users and supports about 4 million creators. She noted that OnlyFans’ flat structure reflects a broader trend in the tech sector, where many major companies have reduced middle-management roles in recent years.