Employee Costs = 150,000 * 20
Legal = 200,000
ISP / DDOS servivers = 120,000
Rent / Security = 120,000
Servers & Utilities = 100,000
= ~ 3.5 MM per year
150k for their "stellar" employees? Wow... do you own a business? I want to work for you!
That 150k per employee figure is way off, but still its true that a low btc/usd exchange rate has an enormous impact on Gox's financials. Taking into account their history of honesty but profound amateurism, I also wonder how good they scaled during the "success", and how well are they going to handle this rough moments (because for them these are rough moments, that's for sure).
150K is the total employee cost - I should have made that clear. Where I work, employees cost about 2x their salary in taxes, benefits, equipement, etc...
Think about it. With their new infrastructure and crap volume, they could start losing 50K per day if the price keeps dropping. Hell, they may already be bankrupt for all we know. The fact that they only accept bank transfers in and not out, is definitely a red flag.
I have $100 that says they'll "unfortunately need to extend" their USD hiatus.
So according to your calculations, Gox didn't exist before March of this year (when we crossed through $65). Imagine how much they must have been running in the red when bitcoin was $5 or$12!
Of course not, that would be stupid
Last year MtGox was a TINY operation. They had a handful of employees, no DOS protection to speak of, no offline storage, small retail space, and only a couple of servers. At the beginning of this year they have needed to seriously scale up. A new AML team for verifications, many more servers, new developers, new DDOS services, new facilities, lawyers, accountants, etc... There is no doubt that they made money in the first quarter of this year, but they have obviously needed to SPEND lots of money as well.
My point is that they very likely SPENT money in proportionate to the much higher income they were generating then. An income they've been largely cut-off from for the last month. But you know, costs don't go away as easily as profits. They are still spending horrendous money. If they haven't been keeping good accounting practices, it's entirely possible they're in financial trouble. ...and you know what would be a obvious sign of financial problems? Turning off fiat withdrawals.