[HN Gopher] Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of res... ___________________________________________________________________ Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring Author : minimaxir Score : 304 points Date : 2022-09-29 18:39 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com) | beckingz wrote: | Layoffs time: move quickly and break people. | scarmig wrote: | If it's likely you'll need layoffs, it's probably best to move | as quickly as possible. Otherwise gossip, speculation, and fear | have the chance to dominate. | switch007 wrote: | At my company... | | 1. We're aware of the economic situation and what others | companies are doing and are just monitoring | | 2. We decided to just to ever-so-slightly ease off the gas on | hiring. It's definitely not a hiring freeze. Do not use those | words. | | 3. Things are delayed just until the budget is discussed | | 4. No new hires (still don't call it a freeze) <-- We are here | | 5. Small amount of layoffs ? | | 6. Large amount of layoffs ? | | (1-4 was about 3 weeks.) | parkingrift wrote: | Facebook (Meta) cannot innovate. Their growth since inception is | almost exclusively through acquisitions. Instagram, WhatsApp, and | Oculus. The core Facebook product is arguably worse today than it | was 15 years ago. Meta's response to new market entrants is to | just copy their features, and when they do attempt to innovate | it's just comically off-base (Metaverse). This entire "Metaverse" | play is so ridiculous it's deep into meme territory. | | Meta should have plainly seen the writing on the wall with regard | to their data collection and privacy practices but either | wouldn't, or more likely couldn't, pivot to new areas. | | And now Zuck is here saying this hiring freeze is due to the | economic situation. Peak comedy. The reality is Meta has no | answer for TikTok, BeReal, Apple/Google privacy changes, or | whatever else is coming to the market next. | | I wish Meta nothing but the worst, but I'm sorry for any | unfortunate souls who chose to work their and will be out of a | job. | armitron wrote: | Of all FAANGs I expect FB to be the first to sink. I see the | writing on the wall.. | _boffin_ wrote: | Why? | jeffbee wrote: | Their main product sucks and their Boomer user base is | literally dying. The acquisitions are keeping them in the | game, but Insta has intense competition from TikTok and Snap | and YouTube. They don't have an unsinkable critical product | that everyone uses and will continue to use through good and | bad times, like search or mail. | lallysingh wrote: | Shit maybe they should buy Harley Davidson. | bpodgursky wrote: | Snapchat is walking dead fwiw. | | TikTok is strong, but realistically will be banned across | the west next couple years b/c of security problems. | | You might hate Instagram, and that's very understandable, | but it's going to be fine. | mrkramer wrote: | Snapchat is still doing fine considering how much | competition they have all over the place e.g. Instagram, | TikTok, YouTube etc. | | TikTok won't be banned because US will force it to | relocate all their relevant servers to US and hand in US | citizens' data to US agencies. And realistically speaking | TikTok is no different than Microsoft, Google and | Facebook; instead all data going to one superpower it | flows to another and majority of this data is garbage | that's inefficiently used to target you with personalized | ads. Personal data is mostly garbage like I said but data | about specific groups and overall population might be | more valuable and important taking in consideration | economic competition and arms race between US and China. | jeffbee wrote: | I used to think this about Snap but then | https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens- | social... | colinmhayes wrote: | Problem with snapchat is that no one older than 25 uses | it. They've already saturated their user base and stuffed | as many ads as they can into the app. There's not really | anywhere for them to go and they're still losing money. | mrkramer wrote: | They refused Facebook's acquisition offer but I think | their endgame is getting acquired by Google. Facebook | offered $3bn but Google will have to offer much more, at | least x5 more. | BlargMcLarg wrote: | TikTok being banned would cause immense backlash with the | public. Odds are higher it will get replaced before a ban | takes place, and Insta isn't exactly stepping up. | vaiso wrote: | Not the OP, and this is just speculation on my part so take | it with a grain of salt. | | Meta gets the overwhelming majority (97.7%) of their revenue | from advertising[1]. Their business model is completely | reliant on using user data to sell highly targeted ads to | sellers. While most consumers don't actually care what | corporations do with their data, governments have been | starting to crack down on the types of data that can be | collected, and what it can be used for, especially with GDPR | in the EU. The less data Meta can collect, the worse their | targeted advertising will be, and fewer sellers will be | willing to pay - or pay as much - for ads on their platforms. | As it is, many companies are moving more towards influencer | sponsorship for advertising, cutting platforms like Instagram | out of the cost entirely. | | The problem is that all of Meta's eggs are in one basket, and | that basket's bound to drop. Most other big tech companies | have more diverse revenue sources, and so are more robust. | | That being said, I disagree with the premise - Netflix is | probably going to the first FAANG company to fold. | | [1] https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release- | details/... | treis wrote: | They're still a dominant player in a 2 sided market. They | still have traffic (within their site + ad network) and | buyers (people wanting to place ads). Even if we remove all | user tracking and nuke all attribution they're still going | to make a lot of money. It will shift to more national type | ad campaigns and/or targeting based on page content. | lotsofpulp wrote: | > Netflix is probably going to the first FAANG company to | fold | | Why would Netflix go out of business? Are they overly | burdened by debt? | lordnacho wrote: | Much stronger competition in the streaming space. Disney | has better content for every family with kids, so they're | first choice. Amazon already has people via Prime. How | many more are you going to buy? Possibly one, small | chance of two? You've got Netflix and all the others | scrambling for that last space in the house. | | Plus they don't seem to be able to make a hit show of the | kind that gets subscriptions, just a lot of not too | terrible content. | lotsofpulp wrote: | Sure, but I do not see why that would cause bankruptcy. | Their market cap would shrink, but unless they are over | leveraged, they should be able to continue operating | without "folding". | keepquestioning wrote: | Instagram and Whatsapp are keeping them alive. | theGnuMe wrote: | If they play their cards right they could turn WhatsApp into | the premier business to consumer contact platform. Not just | messaging but also phone calls etc... That could massively | reduce the spam calls. | | Maybe you could opt in for political calls if they pay you.. | pier25 wrote: | Does Meta make serious money from Whatsapp? | anm89 wrote: | Absolutely. FB is a house of cards at this point. | seydor wrote: | It will metastasize | raverbashing wrote: | They will throw the book right at your face | hinkley wrote: | Problem: We will have hired all of the people we could ever hire | within 10 years. | | Solution: layoffs | brentmitchell25 wrote: | They should only keep the engineers that remember how to solve | leetcode hard problems /s | loeg wrote: | They haven't asked leetcode hard problems for years, at least. | dominotw wrote: | I got 3 hards only 6 months ago. How do you know what they | are asking 'for years' do you have access to their questions | or something. | loeg wrote: | I am familiar with Meta's interviewing policy, which | proscribes LC "hard" type problems. I don't know the | contents of every single interview, obviously. Your | interviewer(s) violated explicit policy if you were given | LC hards. | google234123 wrote: | In a way does it matter? The interviewers aren't making | the final decisions and the actual hiring committee | aren't stupid and should be able do some basic | normalization. | nobleach wrote: | Have you ever interviewed with Facebook/Meta? They don't do | leetcode problems. Say what you want about them as a company, | but I've done quite a few interviews in my career and their | process was one of my favorites. | SpicyLemonZest wrote: | Good to hear that it's changed if they're not. When I | interviewed with Facebook, they asked a leetcode problem, had | me come back into the office for a second one because I got | strong feedback from all the other sessions, then rejected me | with a suggestion that I should come back in 6 months when | I'm better at tree traversals. | ilickpoolalgae wrote: | thereare5lights wrote: | This is so false. They absolutely do leetcode problems | dekhn wrote: | Um, when I interviewed, there were two leetcode problems | administered by junior engineers to me. A recruiter contacted | me recently about a role and I asked if they still ask | leetcode questions... got crickets in response. | tristor wrote: | I had a radically different experience. The worst interview | I've ever had was with FB about 9 years ago. I got an offer | and it was significantly (like more than 2x) what I was being | paid at the time and I turned it down because the interview | experience was so awful I couldn't imagine working with the | people who had conducted my interview. Even setting aside | other ethical concerns, I've added FB to my permanent | blacklist of companies I will never work for sheerly because | of how shit their interview process is. | subsubzero wrote: | I interviewed with them 12 years ago, it was a long time | ago but I remember all the interviewers felt like they had | come from a funeral, everyone was absolutely miserable. I | knew right then and there I could never work at a company | with such negativity, also they wanted me to skip my | honeymoon to start with them which I was not about to do so | overall a terrible company and experience. And after I | started learning about their shady business dealings I put | them on a permanent blacklist to this day. | hdjjhhvvhga wrote: | > also they wanted me to skip my honeymoon to start with | them | | They must be really strange folks. I can't imagine 1) a | company who would propose such a thing to a (potential) | employee, 2) a person who would agree to that. Seriously, | WTF. | iepathos wrote: | Ask them for a million dollar bonus to do so and a | contract saying they'll pay any losses due to divorce | later on :P /s | xvector wrote: | I interviewed with Meta a few months ago and all my | interviewers were upbeat, enthusiastic, and excited. | Meanwhile my Google and Amazon interviewers looked | miserable and bored as fuck. | | With Google it's actually been a pattern. Interviewed for | them and passed HC three times, but each time I couldn't | bring myself to work for them given how bored everyone | looked. | bckr wrote: | A strategy my friend used was to get the "soft offer" and | then shop around for a team for as long as it takes to | find one that excited him. | garmanarnar wrote: | That's literally just Google's hiring practices. There is | a team matching phase for all engineers. | bitL wrote: | Their interview process improved significantly and they had | it arguably better than any other FAANG in recent years. | ProAm wrote: | I'm interested in any evidence about this. I'm not | agreeing or disagreeing its just a extremely general | statement about 5 companies with no facts behind it and | would be interested to see whats different between all 5 | companies in 2022 in the talent acquisition department. | tomrod wrote: | Eh, must have failed to push it organization-wide. | bitL wrote: | Well, a friend of mine was invited to an on-site | interview at Google once, flew a few hours there, then | arrived at the reception, waited for 7 hours, then they | told him they forgot about him and he can go back home. | Some people have bad experiences for many different | reasons (shrug)... Pity it happened to you. | [deleted] | cloverich wrote: | Huh, I had an interview at Meta a few months back (which I | backed out of) and the (very nice) interviewing prep | instructions they provide very clearly stated you should be | able to do leet code style questions, preferably two mediums, | in an hour. Their interview process felt very organized and | prepared overall, although I backed out before actually | interviewing with folks. | mattnewton wrote: | I just joined Meta this year and had to solve leetcode-style | problems, not sure what you mean? Maybe that they aren't | literally taken from leetcode or taken on leetcode.com? | dessant wrote: | What made you want to work at Meta? | systemvoltage wrote: | A friend that joined Meta's AI team: | | Blue pill: I am passionate about connecting people | | Red pill: Money is nice, good people and low stress job | colinmhayes wrote: | money... | filoleg wrote: | I legitimately cannot see this question in the current | context as anything but being made in bad faith. | | Do you seriously struggle to think of possible reasons | for why someone would want to work for Meta? Something | like "high pay, interesting/difficult challenges and | problems to work on, large scale rarely found elsewhere, | and lots of learning opportunities (including loads of | great engineers to learn from)" never crossed your mind? | | Not saying that those were the reasons OP used to make | their choice, could have been plenty others. But given | there are so many obvious possible reasons, the question | in the context of the original comment feels just off. | | P.S. I am neither current nor a former Meta employee. It | is just jarring to see reddit-tier flamebait discourse in | HN threads. | stonogo wrote: | I always think of the same question when I talk to | someone who goes to work for Meta. High pay, sure, but | that's available elsewhere. | | Scale, by now, is surely an operations matter. If they're | still having to innovate to perform at their current | scale, what the hell have they been doing? In other | words, aside from the VR distraction, what interesting | challenges remain at Meta? | | I know they have to rebuild their ad platform since Apple | devastated it. But is "convincing people to look at | advertisements" really still an interesting challenge? | That's the point of view I don't understand, and would | like to! | dessant wrote: | > Do you seriously struggle to think of possible reasons | for why someone would want to work for Meta? | | Yes, I struggle to think of a good reason to work for | such a harmful company as Meta. People usually don't land | there because of a desperate need for money, which would | probably be one of the very few acceptable reasons for | joining that company. | | And why should my question be in good faith? Why should | we not call out people who cheerfully join organizations | that pose a threat to our future, and show no civic | responsibility? | filoleg wrote: | > I struggle to think of a good reason to work for such a | harmful company as Meta | | WhatsApp is an extremely useful product in my life. | Instagram is nice for keeping up to date with some | friends I don't get a chance to hangout in-person with | often, as well as following some small local artist and | museum pages. I dont care for FB as a product anymore, | but pre-pandemic it was great for helping organize events | with my friends. Oculus Quest 2 is a product I use daily | and enjoy. | | Most people outside of a subset of HN boiling in their | own echochamber consider a lot of those products as | useful in their lives, and will just give you the look of | "huh, sounds interesting, i will look into it later. Oh, | just remembered I had an appointment in an hour, welp | gotta go, see ya later" if you try to give them that | "harmful" spiel. | | > And why should my question be in good faith? | | Because that's what people come to HN for. If I wanted | bad faith takes galore, I would need to go no further | than reddit. | | > Why should we not call out people who cheerfully join | organizations that pose a threat to our future, and show | no civic responsibility? | | Because that's just your opinion. And it is sliding into | QAnon-level justifications for using arguments like "why | should we wear masks, when they pose a threat to our | freedoms and the way of life!" and "why should we not | storm the capitol, it is a civic responsibility to free | ourselves from the shadow cabal's tyrrany and threat to | our future!". | | I don't agree with those QAnon takes, so I hope you | realize that not everyone universally agrees with your | takes either. And not because they are being paid by Meta | or were "brainwashed". | int_19h wrote: | I see a lot more negativity towards Facebook IRL than I | do here on HN. If anything, the correlation seems to be | that those closest to the tech industry are the ones most | positive about it, while casual users are extremely | negative. | dessant wrote: | You should empathize more with the victims of those | platforms to understand why Meta is being called out, | both the people who got radicalized and also those who | are being murdered. A service can provide you a great | experience, while also being used as a tool to facilitate | ethnic cleansing. | | People have been protesting the latter, including dozens | of human rights organizations around the world, not just | HN users. | BeetleB wrote: | > Yes, I struggle to think of a good reason to work for | such a harmful company as Meta. | | It seems you also struggle to understand that the | majority of the world does not consider them to be a | harmful company, and do not agree with your assessment of | it. | | Anti-disclaimer: I do not work for FAANG, nor have I. I | also never had a FB/Instagram account. I'm not fond of | Facebook, but I can see other people's perspectives. | UncleMeat wrote: | > Yes, I struggle to think of a good reason to work for | such a harmful company as Meta. | | Then you aren't actually asking to learn. Instead you are | judging the poster. That's a thing you can do, but | couching it in a question is terrible forum etiquette. | bagels wrote: | I have. They definitely ask leetcode type of problems. | MattGaiser wrote: | I spoke to a Meta recruiter a few months ago who offered to | send me helpful algo resources for the interview. | pyler wrote: | Willing to share them? | MattGaiser wrote: | They ghosted me, but it was in the initial call. | burai wrote: | I interviewed for them. Questions were Front End related. One | of the questions were "how could you find a node in an hmtl | by id", to which I answered "using the DOM api, a | querySelector would do a good job". The interviewer started | hypothesising that the querySelector is not available, so we | had to start discussing a whole binary traversal algorithm. | If that's not leetcode I don't know what qualifies as it | morelisp wrote: | Basic tree traversal is considered "leetcode" these days? | No wonder software is shit. | throwawayhtml wrote: | document.getElementById?? | int_19h wrote: | That's the DOM API. | fdgsdfogijq wrote: | They are notorious for wanting their engineers to spit out | memorized solutions of leetcode hards | loeg wrote: | Leetcode-style problems yes; "hards" specifically, no. | nice_byte wrote: | I have interviewed with them more than a single time, and | this is simply not true. | ceejayoz wrote: | This thread leaves me wondering if, perhaps, interviewing | differs within the organization. Lots of confident "nuh- | uh"s on both sides. | nice_byte wrote: | nsenifty wrote: | They don't ask leetcode questions for Front-end engineers | AFAIK. It's mostly practical Javascript/DOM/browser | questions. | | Funnily enough though, I heard once you join as a Front- | end engineer, you are pretty much a regular SWE and can | join any team and work on any tech, even backend/systems. | tempsy wrote: | it probably depends on the role and team. to say they | don't have leetcode style interviews at any stage for any | candidate is "simply not true" | nice_byte wrote: | I mean, they do ask algorithmic problems, but first, | they're not "leetcode hard" (leetcode hards can get just | insane, it's impractical to ask those in an interview | setting), more like mediums, and second - out of 6 or 7 | interviews maybe 2-3 will be those. Domain-specific / | system design ones are more important. Though that | depends on the level they're hiring for, I imagine fresh | grads get more "write code on whiteboard" types of | questions. | tempsy wrote: | the claim was that they don't do leetcode questions, not | that they do easy and medium ones but not hard ones. | loeg wrote: | Both upthread claims specifically say "hards," which is | not true in the last few years. (In fact, LC "hards" are | explicitly proscribed.) | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33025666 | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33025573 | athorax wrote: | Facebook is notorious for using leetcode problems | verbatim. Your singular experience does not invalidate | that fact. | nice_byte wrote: | you're forgetting that it's leetcode pulling their | problems from the companies' question pool, not the other | way around. | sh4rks wrote: | It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, all leetcode | "style" questions fall into a particular bucket. Two | pointers, graphs, etc. It's not like the company is | innovating new types of problems. It's just the same | problem reworded. | m00x wrote: | This has been my experience as well, same for Amazon. | | I didn't practice that much since I hate wasting time on | useless tasks, and the interviewer literally told me to | just leetcode and read the interview book. I asked him a | bunch of web questions and he had no fucking clue, all he | did was leetcode and interview every year. | lifeisgood99 wrote: | They definitely did when I did a loop a few years ago. Maybe | things changed or you got lucky? | matai_kolila wrote: | IDK why this is so contentious for folks, it probably | varies by team, role, or something else. | nobleach wrote: | Maybe? 2020 for me. The first wave had me write code to | solve a problem.... pretty far from Amazon's rebranded | HackerRank/Leetcode nonsense. I was talking to a human | being the entire time. They were great about making me feel | like they WANTED me to succeed. Next round was more | conversational/System Design stuff. | arduinomancer wrote: | I think you're confused, when people say "they ask | leetcode questions" they don't mean they do automated | tests | | The questions the human is asking you come from a big | question bank and a lot of it is listed on LeetCode under | the meta company tag because people leak them. | | People use Leetcode to practice for those interviews, | they don't use the leetcode site in the interview | nobleach wrote: | I guess I am just saying I didn't feel like herded cattle | like I did with Amazon's automated leetcode/hackerrank | rebranded system. | | I mean, now I'm just here to watch the downvotes pile | on.... | oblio wrote: | Leetcode problems doesn't mean leetcode.com problems in a | narrow sense (aka copy paste). | | It means reasonably complex algorithmic and data structure | problems you're supposed to solve by coding under pressure, | quickly, in interview conditions. | | And if you think that's not happening, I have a bridge in | Brooklyn to sell you. | nobleach wrote: | I suppose I AM confused then. I don't mind someone asking | me complex algorithmic problems as long as we're WORKING | toward a solution together. To me, leetcode means, "you | have 45 minutes to solve these 2 or 3 problems... I'll | watch". | | Algorithmic thinking is kinda what I do. So solving those | problems doesn't feel like a bad proxy for how I might | perform on the job. | oblio wrote: | Yeah, we all solve problems using algorithms. | | However, how often do you come up with high performance, | close to optimal algorithms, on your own, within 45 | minutes? | | How often do you implement heaps and such as part of your | day job, versus using standard libraries or common ones? | twelve40 wrote: | I have, and it was straight up leetcode. But that was a few | years ago. | suresk wrote: | I had a recruiter reach out to me about some ML positions | there earlier this year, and I was sort of interested in it | for a bit. They have an applicant portal where they literally | have you practice leetcode problems, and are pretty open that | you're going to be asked those kinds of questions in the | interview. | htrp wrote: | Are they at least ML leetcode problems? | suresk wrote: | No. This was for more of a machine learning engineering | role than a pure ML scientist role though. | axg11 wrote: | Have you ever interviewed with Meta? They are _the_ FAANG | company that places the highest weighting on leetcode | problems. | bitL wrote: | From my experience they place most weight on system design. | They allow you to get 1-2 neutral flags from leetcoding and | still get an offer. | tw20212021 wrote: | When I did the system design interview the guy told me | that zuckeberg created memcached. Not sure if he meant | used or invented, could have just been a language thing. | Anyway, I'm glad I didn't pass. | bitL wrote: | A guy from Google told me that a quantum computer can | solve all NP-hard problems... They aren't always the best | and brightest. | dominotw wrote: | leetcode is a standin for all thing you can memorize and | vomit out in in interview. | | Designing url-shortner is no different than edit | distance. | matai_kolila wrote: | Meh, I can do a URL shortener in my sleep, but I'd have | to study to beat a leetcode test. | dominotw wrote: | its the opposite for me :D | typon wrote: | Completely not my experience. All the questions I got were | word-for-word Leetcode problems. At least Amazon goes through | the trouble of disguising them as "Amazon Deliver Trucks | going from house to house" instead of "an array of numbers" | EddySchauHai wrote: | I had to navigate a dynamic maze involving teleports and | boulders to show my leet graphing abilities to join as a test | engineer :) Suffice to say I failed. I build test frameworks, | manage test network infrastructure, and deploy CI/CD | pipelines (and think I'm pretty good at it). I just really | suck at leetcode. | | Edit: In fact thinking back, they even sent me tips on how to | improve my leetcode skills in preparation for the interview! | The whole process was completely guided by it. | jfrbfbreudh wrote: | lol. meta literally has their own leetcode style training | platform for you to practice questions on when you apply for | SWE positions. | darth_avocado wrote: | I got rejected on an obscure leetcode hard last year in the | telephone screen, which was ridiculous considering I had | enough practice to destroy leetcode hards. | | Though it worked out for me in the end, but I was definitely | annoyed for a day or two. | uncletaco wrote: | I got rejected and then when they inevitably called me up | the next year the recruiter pulled up the feedback from my | interview and I wasn't recommended because I rewrote a | function to be easier to unit test, after being asked "how | would you test this?". By rewrote I mean I added a | parameter to take in a fictional db client, rather than | instantiate directly. | | I told her no thank you and hung up. | myth_drannon wrote: | I was wondering if there is a correlation between hiring | engineers who spend their lives memorizing leetcode hard | problems and a company's ability to innovate and execute? | | Did they really optimize for hiring the top 0.001% of engineers | or it's just that the fish is rotten from the top. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | It seems to me that the selection process favors Indian and | Chinese engineers who are used to cramming for rigorous | entrance exams to top universities. | garmanarnar wrote: | Nah, it's the whites who the hiring market favors. | wollsmoth wrote: | I think it just heavily favors new grads, who just spent a | year+ studying algorithms. Those with full time jobs have | to spend precious hours of free time remembering how to do | these. | hdjjhhvvhga wrote: | Well, this just sucks about these jobs interviews. I | learned quite a bit during my last job and I'd be happy | to show some of these to the interviewer, but instead I'm | forced to answer questions that I know have nothing to do | with what I'll be dealing with. It's always the same | story, it's just exhausting. | wollsmoth wrote: | Yeah, it's kinda ridiculous actually. It's like they | don't even believe you were employed when they interview | you. | outworlder wrote: | > I think it just heavily favors new grads, who just | spent a year+ studying algorithms. | | Year+ is a fair assessment. A proper Computer Science | course(4 years!) is mostly about algorithms. Most of | leetcode hard would qualify as warmup exercises for my | class. | | That was a while ago. Right now? My brain is chock full | of architectural stuff, k8s, several programming | languages, multiple cloud provider idiosyncrasies, etc | etc. Can I do leetcode? Yeah sure. Can I do it during an | interview? I've tried recently, bombed spectacularly. | | I'll probably have to invest the time prepping properly | because there's little choice these days. Like you said, | it's using up our precious free time. I'd rather be, I | don't know, writing some stuff in Rust so I can add that | language to my toolbox. | dominotw wrote: | so indian and chinese new grads ? | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | And also Eastern European or ex-USSR countries where | highschool STEM curriculum is more difficult than in the | west and participation in STEM competitions and olympiads | is encouraged for kids. | | We had to solve binary and hex division and multiplication | on paper for exams and study Dijkstra's algoritm and binary | tree traversal in highschool CS. Ugly stuff for a bunch of | 16 year olds who just wanted to make Flash games. Really | made me hate CS. | BeetleB wrote: | > We had to solve binary and hex division and | multiplication on paper for exams | | This is not ... hard. It's the same logic as decimal | multiplication/division on paper. | | > study Dijkstra's algoritm and binary tree traversal in | highschool CS | | That's more like it! | foobarian wrote: | This was poked fun at in ex-YU: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmrJQaj8sIo&t=240s | (sorry, no translation; tl;dr: CS without computers) | Tade0 wrote: | Eastern European here. From the mentioned I had binary | division, but that was it. | | I was solving leetcode-adjacent problems for the entire | last year of high school in preparation for the final | exam though. | dom96 wrote: | https://archive.ph/2h3t7 | throwaway34237 wrote: | I wonder what freeze means in this context (paywalled so couldn't | see if there was additional context) because I just received a | third followup email from a recruiter at Meta.. | disabled wrote: | Perhaps Zuckerberg should be paid significantly less? Perhaps | Facebook employees should fight back? Like protest or leak | controversial information, especially since Facebook is in the | data hoarding business? | | But, stuff like this should make Facebook employees angry. | Zuckerberg is not a person to envy. | | Read this: https://www.velvetropes.com/backstage/mark-zuckerberg- | house | | Also, a few years ago Zuckerberg spent like $27 million for his | own personal security in a 365 day period, which is obviously | obscene. | | Clearly he is a paranoid dude and certainly he keeps to himself. | | But, he is a hardcore oligarch, that's for sure. | laweijfmvo wrote: | Also spent $20m+ for security during the pandemic/lockdown, | which the company pays for, while all us plebs sat at home. | m_ke wrote: | If that grinds your gears check these out: | | - https://www.dirt.com/gallery/moguls/tech/snapchat-evan- | spieg... | | - https://www.dirt.com/gallery/moguls/finance/brian- | armstrong-... | [deleted] | yuan43 wrote: | > "I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by | now, but from what we're seeing it doesn't yet seem like it has, | so we want to plan somewhat conservatively," Zuckerberg said. A | Meta spokesperson declined to comment. | | The economy _is_ stabilizing. It 's being weaned off of ultra- | loose money for the first time in years. The stock market is | starting to behave more rationally, demanding that a company | whose earnings potential is sinking and which offers no dividend | be valued accordingly. | | > ... Meta had more than 83,500 employees as of June 30, and | added 5,700 new hires in the second quarter. ... | | FWIW, 28 % annualized hiring growth for a company the size and | age of Meta is not normal. It's a sign of mismanagement and | especially loss of focus. | motbus3 wrote: | I agree with you. But I also think this companies have | potential for earning money. Real money. FB has incredible ai | models and platforms as well as interesting hw products. But | they keep pushing publicity for creepy projects such as their | second life version. | | So what happens is that they have tons of fantastic things they | do not properly use. | | I also think that media has chosen Zuckerberg to hit. Yeah. | Lots of contradictions etc, but if anything, he is not stupid. | UncleOxidant wrote: | > The economy is stabilizing. It's being weaned off of ultra- | loose money for the first time in years. The stock market is | starting to behave more rationally, demanding that a company | whose earnings potential is sinking and which offers no | dividend be valued accordingly. | | Agree with the latter part of your statement, but no way have | we hit "stability". Yes, taking away the ultra-loose money | policy had to happen, but doing so has perturbed the system and | it's going to take a while to stabilize. | beambot wrote: | A little dated [2018], but still rings true: The average tenure | for engineers at many major tech companies is ~3 years. Thus, | you'd expect new hires at a rate of 30% annually just to | maintain staffing levels. To determine headcount growth you, | should look at year-over-year changes in total employee count, | not just the number of new hires. TLDR: Meta's new-hire rate is | not atypical. | | https://www.businessinsider.com/average-employee-tenure-rete... | dougmwne wrote: | In fact, the overall head count has been rising rapidly. | | https://www.statista.com/statistics/273563/number-of- | faceboo... | tclancy wrote: | Based on my limited observations having been in a similar | situation for a year, I would guess the average tenure is | Equity Award Years less percentage of people who get fired in | less than the value of Equity Award Years. | | It's a good way to keep reinventing wheels. | gwbas1c wrote: | > The economy is stabilizing. It's being weaned off of ultra- | loose money for the first time in years. | | You might enjoy reading "Principles for Dealing with the | Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail", | https://www.amazon.com/Changing-World-Order-Nations-Succeed-... | (The author is Ray Dalio, one of the US's best institutional | investors.) | | The big question is, when are we going to hit bottom? We need | to make it through the Ukraine and Taiwan situations before | things really bounce back. | UncleOxidant wrote: | > and Taiwan situations | | Let's hope we don't get a Taiwan situation on top of all of | the other stuff that's going on. That way lies WWIII. | ethbr0 wrote: | I expect that's the real reason for the US and Europe's | "all-in" hardline over Ukraine: signalling to China about | Taiwan. | | Because pursuing a similar strategy with China would be | substantially more expensive, in terms of treasure and | blood, for both sides. | | But the critical date there seems to be 2030-2035 based on | military preparations. | dougmwne wrote: | Absolutely. The entire thing is absolutely about China. | Russia is a broken country that would have no | significance beyond its hydrocarbons and nukes. China is | an economic superpower and growing world power. Very soon | it could replace the US as the primary driver of | globalism. If the west had shown itself as disunited, it | would have been time for China to take center stage in | world affairs for the next hundred years. Instead it will | wait for another generation. | eloff wrote: | China doesn't have another generation. They'll be going | into a very stark population collapse that's worse than | what Japan is experiencing now, where adult diapers | outsell baby diapers. I expect that China's economy and | influence will take the shape of an upside-down U, with | the peak in the next decade. If they're going to move on | Taiwan, they cannot wait forever. They came close to | catching up the US, but I don't think they will achieve | it. | mvuksano wrote: | Is there any other country that ever showed anything | other then upside-down U in terms of economy strength and | influence. To best of my knowledge every country, empire | or society rises and eventually falls. Probably the best | known example is Roman empire but every other society I | can think of exhibits same pattern. | dirtyid wrote: | China has multiple generations. Even "stark" demographic | collapse at PRC scale is generating millions of new | births per year (several times greater than US even with | immigration), there will never be shortage of bodies to | fill the military, especially increasingly small force | structure of modern militaries that's shifting towards | autonomous platforms. As for economy, expect PRC to | continue growing, more importantly, move up tech/value | chain and build comprehensive national power, just like | Japan did while her demographic was absolutely in the | shits because JP managed to massively improve human | capita via education to create the skilled workers for | high value economy (also SKR, TW). For reference PRC is | now outputting as much STEM talent as all OECD combined. | | Like other the Asian Tigers with death spiral | demographics still grew significantly simply because | cohort of skilled workers increased massively even though | demographics broadly declined. There's a reason PRC is | rapidly moving up science and innovation indexes | (controlled for quality, not just citations). The reality | is, PRC demographics has never been MORE competitive, and | will increasingly be, because advanced economic | development phase is just getting started. Now add in PRC | is adopting as much industrial robots / automation than | the next 15 countries combined and that overall | demographic decline (as in net population decline) only | improves PRC strategic position by reducing import | dependence. And that the massive regional income | disparity + huge home ownership + enviable house hold | savings rate = PRC elderly simply don't have significant | expection (or need) for old age social support. In many | ways, PRC is almost optimized for weathering demographic | bomb with less social cost relative to properly developed | countries that are seeing comparable demographic decline. | dirtyid wrote: | That may very well be the intent, but it seems to be | backfiring. Go look at this very recent German Marshal | Fund survey polling atlanticist countries with section on | PRC invasion of TW. | | https://www.gmfus.org/news/transatlantic-trends-2022 | | TLDR: negligible (average 4%) consider sending arms and | even less (average 2%) consider sending troops. As if | delivering either is possible to an island within | overwhelming PRC military advantage. US highest at 8%, | which is hilariously low given White House deterrence | efforts. 32% considers joint sanctions. 35% only | diplomatic efforts to end conflict. 12% do nothing. PRC | is looking at these numbers and rubbing hands with glee. | | Also consider UKR/RU conflict is already putting EU | competitiveness into the shits with trend likely to | continue. Pre-war PRC was worried about EU acting as | potential spoiler via US coordination, but now EU is so | weak that they're even more geopolitically irrelevant. | Meanwhile PRC gets dependable energy partner in RU and | increased influence in central Asia / MENA / global south | who sees the hypocrisy in western response when a western | country is attacked. India is even more reticent about | militarizing QUAD. JP economy is going to shits, even if | they wanted to increase military spending, they likely | can not afford to. | | Also notice youth are substantially less PRC. In 2030+ | time frame, we're like to going to see extremely war | wearing societies with polity shifting less anti-PRC at | all cost, digging out of economic cesspit who will have | even less appetite to sanction a much larger trading | partner like PRC. These signalling are having less and | less impact coming as EU weakens. As for US, PRC factored | in US intervention in TW scenario anyway. It's not | deterred but building up massive nuclear arsenal to | follow RU's nuclear coercion strategy. | thecoppinger wrote: | Seconding this, I'm reading the book at the moment and it's | an exceptional insight into the near and long term future. | It's also terrifying. | foobarian wrote: | And they don't even create (and then quickly retire) random new | product. Do they? What would be Meta's equivalent of Stadia? | typeofhuman wrote: | Oculus | polyomino wrote: | Oculus is a much bigger investment than Stadia | wlesieutre wrote: | And Facebook didn't create it either | arbitrary_name wrote: | Nor did they retire it, they rebranded it. | cl0ckt0wer wrote: | IGTV | | https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/5/22710638/instagram-tv- | igt... | thr0wawayf00 wrote: | > It's a sign of mismanagement and especially loss of focus. | | I think it's a natural symptom of running a company built on | exploiting people's desire to craft and control their own | image. It's corporate narcissism. Zuckerberg has been | invincible for so long, how could he not be consumed by the | reality distortion field himself? | defterGoose wrote: | Ooh, careful saying anything negative about social media or | tech companies here. /s | int_19h wrote: | That's one of the easiest way to get upvoted here, | especially wrt Meta. | itsoktocry wrote: | >*The economy is stabilizing.* | | The economy is never "stable". It is constantly in a cycle of | ups and downs, over-investment and under-investment, easy money | and tight money... | | The current state is no more "normal" than any other period. | rightbyte wrote: | Zero is a special value you know, since zero times anything | is zero. | | Edit: Except infinity ... | bjornsing wrote: | In the limit 0*x tends to zero as x tends to infinity. | lavp wrote: | An infinite amount of nothing is still nothing. | galaxyLogic wrote: | See also: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/2022/09/28/meta- | ordered-t... | BurningFrog wrote: | > _The economy is stabilizing._ | | The economy is in the early phases of the biggest Fed | tightening since at least the 1980s. | | If you know where that will end up, congrats. For the rest of | us, it's very much uncharted waters. | colinmhayes wrote: | > which offers no dividend be valued accordingly. | | FWIW Meta has apparently done $15 billion in buybacks this year | which gives them a 4% yield at current cap. Investors generally | prefer buybacks to dividends because of tax advantages, so this | should actually have helped their stock more than a 4% div | yield would. | bin_bash wrote: | Haven't they already been in a freeze since this spring? Or did | they come out of it for a bit? | saos wrote: | > In prior moves to reduce spending, a dual-camera watch the | company was building to compete with the Apple Watch was | shuttered. | | loool | | > Meta is not the only advertising company to be hit by broader | economic challenges. | | interesting they are referenced as advertising company.. | lm28469 wrote: | Is it ? | | https://www.statista.com/statistics/267031/facebooks-annual-... | | https://www.statista.com/statistics/1093781/distribution-of-... | | Meta and Google are advertising companies, their "products" are | just a way to: | | - gather data: whatsapp/messenger, maps, youtube, | "like"/"share" buttons, reviews &c. | | - display ads: google search, youtube, instagram, fb feed | | - display a "buy" button: google search, youtube, instagram | | The only "new" products they don't shutdown after a year are | products that allows them to gather more data / show more ads / | get more "buy" clicks. Everything else get terminated no matter | what | Ozzie_osman wrote: | Our startup spends a little bit on Facebook Ads (across FB, | Instagram, etc). It's very clear over the past few months that | there's trouble in the ads engine. Attribution is a mess, ad | efficiency fluctuates randomly, the UI and API are flaky. I don't | know whether this is a result of the ios privacy changes, the | broader economy affecting ad spend, or internal issues... Maybe a | mix. But it's clear that Meta's main revenue engine is a complete | mess at the moment. | | PS it's not just us. We've seen industry-wide data showing that | it's a broader issue. | boringg wrote: | iOS privacy has killed facebook advertisements. Meta is dealing | with it currently - so are all small businesses who relied on | good conversion from their ad targeting that has gone to isht | since then. | | Apple will probably fill in that void at some point they've got | a lock on all that intelligence. I'm curious how long it will | take and how they will manage to do it without stepping on | privacy toes. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | The high price of Apple products in markets like India was | such a great targeting filter for D2C products by itself. | There was a time in 2020-21 when you could literally throw | any random ad for a premium product, choose iPhone users as | your target, and land wild conversions. | r00fus wrote: | > Apple will probably fill in that void at some point | | a) what if they don't? Why should they? | | b) I would lose a lot of trust in Apple if they did. I don't | buy iOS devices because I trust Apple Ads better. I buy them | because I can avoid ads better and my privacy doesn't get | shredded in the process. | | c) Wouldn't that be a massive antitrust issue? | Infinitesimus wrote: | > what if they don't? Why should they? | | They will because they are a for-profit company and there's | profit to be had. Apple will likely find a strong marketing | angle for their Ad network (won't be the first time they've | tried). | | Selling hardware is a great business but it gets saturated | eventually. The next move for eternal growth is selling | services on top of said hardware. | | > I would lose a lot of trust in Apple if they did. I don't | buy iOS devices because I trust Apple Ads better. I buy | them because I can avoid ads better and my privacy doesn't | get shredded in the process. | | Apple already has a lot of data about you. Consider that | they own both the hardware and software experience on an | iPhone. I'm having a hard time seeing an alternative here | unless you have the time to manage your own phone OS... | | > Wouldn't that be a massive antitrust issue? | | Only if someone does something about it. I assume G and | Meta's lawyers are already working on arguments. | Ozzie_osman wrote: | Apple already is filling that void. If you run your ads on | third-party networks, you are beholden to Apple's privacy | rules. But if you run Apple Search Ads through, Apple | itself, a lot of the same rules don't apply and you get | targeting and attribution back. | | A lot of advertisers are thus shifting their ad spend into | Apple. | r00fus wrote: | But this is just in the App Store, right? Not on web or | within iOS spotlight. | | Honestly I don't use FB, but my wife does, and I can tell | you she spends about 1/100th the time in the Apple App | Store as FB. | | I don't see Search Ads as having anywhere near the same | context. | Ozzie_osman wrote: | Yes, their inventory is smaller at the moment, but they | also show ads in News and Stock apps (note that those ads | are personalized and don't have an ATT prompt by | default.. so Apple apps don't have to play by the same | rules as others). My guess is they will continue to | expand inventory to other Apple apps (eg Maps, etc), but | whether they try to build a full-fledged ad platform | (where you can use Apple to buy ads in 3rd party apps) is | yet to be seen.. they'd definitely have to overcome a | backlash if they did that. | tomrod wrote: | If Apple doesn't, it seems a bit insane to miss the | opportunity. | | Note that I strongly dislike adtech as a business model, but | my hat is off to their cunning marketing if Apple pulls it | off. | creato wrote: | As much as I can't stand any company involved here, if | apple does what you suggest it would be far more offensive | than any other supposed antitrust violations alleged over | the last few years. | bee_rider wrote: | They have an advertising platform already, right? | | Apple has been around for a while, they I wonder if the | company has some institutional 'survival instinct' that's | identified growing the ad platform become too much as long- | term unhealthy. It is a corrupting influence that makes the | consumer into the enemy, after all. | | They've also managed to become incredibly huge while | somehow mostly dodging the eye of regulatory bodies. | Privacy could mess with that track record and I'm sure they | are aware of that fact. | TacticalCoder wrote: | > iOS privacy has killed facebook advertisements | | A problem I see with FB is that they don't control anything | on which they run. They run on stuff from their competitors: | it's either Google (Chrome / Android), Microsot (Windows / | Edge) or Apple (OS X / Safari / iOS). | | Despite the downturn these three behemoths are still enjoying | a market cap in the trillion+. Meta is actually down to $360 | bn. Meta controls neither the OS nor the browser. | | They want to change that by having people switching en masse | to the Metaverse but I'm really not sure this is happening. | 411111111111111 wrote: | > _They want to change that by having people switching en | masse to the Metaverse but I 'm really not sure this is | happening._ | | The tech isn't even close to there yet. | | Current gen VR tech demos sparks the imagination, and it's | definitely great for people that want to like it... But | that's not even close to good enough for mass adoption. | | Their teased prototypes look like a solid upgrade, but it's | still not going to be enough. | | Mobile procedures just don't have enough graphics power yet | and the one's we do have consume too much power. We're | missing several hardware breakthrough before mass adoption | becomes likely from my perspective as a VR headset owner. | | It's probably gonna happen eventually, but not necessarily | with current tech. | | Meta might succeed if it stays on the ball and keeps | pushing for centuries, but i don't think it's management | will do so. | ergocoder wrote: | I walked in oculus for like 10 minutes, and I puked. The | technology isn't ready. | q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote: | > centuries | | _Centuries_? I haven 't taken a close look at VR (though | I'm flirting with buying a headset soon, just for | kicks...) but I'd always assumed it was more like 10-25 | years away. | | What are the hardware breakthroughs that you think would | do it? | cbtacy wrote: | True lightfield display would be a start.... | stephc_int13 wrote: | Brain implants. Or very light AR glasses. | magic_hamster wrote: | Are you going to be willing to install a brain implant | from Facebook? Dear God. It's like something out of a | dystopian movie. No amount of money will convince me to | do something like this, especially coming from Facebook, | but any corporation really. | | Very light AR glasses can be an interesting proposition | but they will not provide the VR immersive experience. | | I'm not sure what people expect from VR but it's not | Ready Player One and will not be for a very long time. | However, playing Half Life Alyx is quite phenomenal even | today on current hardware. | [deleted] | stephc_int13 wrote: | I would bet money that Meta is going to fail | spectacularly at their attempt to build the metaverse. | | And it will be fun to watch from the outside. | | Unfortunately, I don't expect this endeavor to give | interesting fruits to humanity, but sometimes happy | accidents happen. | [deleted] | galaxyLogic wrote: | This reminds me of what Apple did just before Web came to | the fore. They had something called HyperCard. Then they | had something called "Agents" for automating your online | activities. But neither of those platforms succeeded. | jjulius wrote: | You know, I've been wondering what could possibly possess | Meta to be so, "FUCK YEAH, ALL IN MF'ERS!!!" about the | metaverse for a while now. This actually makes a lot of | sense; companies control the platforms we are on, which | then determines how we must operate (read: which prevents | us from invasively monitoring you as much as we'd like), so | why not control the full stack as people close more doors | on us? | | I still think they are going to fail spectacularly there, | but I suppose I can't blame them for trying. | no_wizard wrote: | Perhaps they shouldn't have bailed on making phones. | Android phone arena is still very messy and they could | just...have good hardware and a slick skin on Android and | probably make a go of it. | | I know I'm armchairing the devil so to speak but I think | this would have been a good long term play for them, but | I imagine their expertise at the time was antithetical to | hardware. | lotsofpulp wrote: | Meta/Microsoft/Amazon all did not want to plow the | billions of dollars and years it takes to develop | hardware that can compete with iPhone and Android. | | They bet that they did not need to, but unfortunately for | Meta, looks like they should have. | no_wizard wrote: | Not even compete with Android, just build a better | Android phone, and sell it near cost (or at cost). Would | have given them troves of data I'm sure. | | The muscle is around contract negotiation with the | carriers and co-opting those partnerships, but they had | the money to burn on this. | magic_hamster wrote: | Who in their right mind would buy a Facebook phone, | considering the neverending security issues, data leaks | and total disregard for user privacy? | graeme wrote: | It would tell if it was like one plus. Premium phone at a | discount. One plus has horrendous privacy issues | vkou wrote: | The same people that still use Facebook. Which is to say, | we could probably find a couple of billion people who | couldn't give two rats asses about all that, and just | want to respond to Aunt Nancy's political rants[1] in a | space where everyone can see. | | [1] Or watch Feel Good Videos ABOUT People Spontaneously | HELPING Poor ANIMALS Trapped In A PREDICAMENT [2]. | | [2] That the people in question may or may not have put | them into. | r00fus wrote: | 7-10 years ago it would have sold. Especially if they | marketed is as "use FB as your address book". | losvedir wrote: | But Facebook is a platform unto itself. If it was still an | enjoyable product that everyone used, and connected to | their local interests and groups on, they could still have | great, targeted advertising I think. But people don't | really seem to use it much anymore in earnest, and their | targeting probably relied more on 3rd party scripts across | the Internet which are being restricted. | unity1001 wrote: | It defies description why they aren't bringing context- | sensitive ads back. They didn't follow you all around the | Internet, they were relevant in any given context, and you | felt less need to block them out mentally. | jjulius wrote: | I was more likely to click on context-sensitive ads. Most | targeted ads I see these days are for products that I've | already bought in the past few weeks, which just boggles my | mind. | | Edit: Even today, I'm still seeing ads for a subwoofer that | I bought back in early August. Good going, Meta. | magic_hamster wrote: | I bet that showing ads based on context is somehow limited | to people being in that context (i.e. in a specific website | for instance), while being able to draw an audience from | the entirety of Facebook users (in the billions) is more | profitable. | s1k3 wrote: | Our CPIs have been absurd ever since the privacy changes. Meta | is fucked and I don't think people realize how much of an | effect this is going to have on the entire internet. | | There are large downstream effects the iOS privacy changes are | having on mobile advertising and the viability of companies | that rely on mobile programmatic to bring people in the door. | rr888 wrote: | To me it looks like they tried to copy TikTok, with loads of | ads and turned a decent product into something no one wants to | use. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | They still dominate the Indian market simply because TikTok | is banned here. | | While I don't undermine the spying potential of TikTok, the | ban was strangely timed - soon after a huge investment from | Facebook in India's biggest company (and one with tremendous | lobbying power). Only a handful of Chinese apps were banned, | even though majority of devices running them were Chinese as | well (and went unbanned). | | Facebook very well would have lost the massive Indian market | as well without the TikTok ban. | UnpossibleJim wrote: | Do you think the Digital Markets Act in the E.U. had anything | to do with this? | | https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/technology/eu-regulation-... | TylerE wrote: | They've gotten so damn greedy. | | On the mobile app literally over half my feed is ads. | pvarangot wrote: | I use it on the browser to check one or two groups and on my | phone for events, it's a mess. On the groups I always want to | check for the most recent posts because it doesn't have a lot | of activity and besides countless things I've tried it always | wants to show the posts ordered with its algorithm. It's also | like: | | post AD post AD post AD | | I'm used to ads, I grew up watching cartoons and shows on | prime time old airwaves TV and listening to music on Top 50 | radio shows. This is worse. No other media is as bad as | Facebook ad-wise and no other media is worse than what prime | TV and radio where in the 90s. They devolved. | bee_rider wrote: | My feed is mostly not posts from people I know (for some | reason it has started sending me tiktok length clips of | standup comedians). Actually it is not so bad, some of the | clips are pretty funny, but I could get that sort of content | from tiktok or youtube I guess, I just happen to use the | facebook app because it is already installed. | | Their fundamental advantage was network effect, I guess that | is dead now that like 1/5 posts I see is from a friend. | sjm-lbm wrote: | My understanding is that this is the strategy: the network | effect method for choosing what content you want (FB/Insta) | is getting beat by the "algorithm determines what you are | interested in" method for choosing what content you want, | so Facebook is pivoting to the latter. | bee_rider wrote: | Maybe Myspace should make a concerted push back into the | space Facebook has I guess decided to vacate. | | It seems crazy to try and compete with Tiktok on their | home turf, they sound to have a pretty competent | implementation and Facebook has got to be about as nimble | as a barge at this point. | passion__desire wrote: | People have stopped posting on facebook. That's the reason | for increasing content from other sources. | Liuser wrote: | I suspect the reason why people have stopped posting is | because of increasing content from other sources. It's | definitely my reason. | | It's a negative feedback loop. | spike021 wrote: | Meanwhile I constantly get ads for restaurants and other | businesses almost everywhere but the state I live in | (California). | | I routinely get ads for Boston, NY, Japan, Taiwan, Germany. | | I've been to NY and Japan but none of the other places. So I | don't think it's using my previous locations. | beckingz wrote: | It's really hard to configure FB to target actual locations | as opposed to people interested in those locations. | | You've been to NY, so you're interested in NY, so FB will | make money fleecing restaurants in NY wasting their ad | money on you. | oceanplexian wrote: | If you work somewhere like Facebook, this is totally | unsurprising. There are probably thousands of engineers | writing yet-another-framework and working on the 100th re- | invention of the wheel for some random internal product | that users will never see. The engineers actually solving | business problems are almost always understaffed and under- | appreciated, hence why the product sucks. | dangus wrote: | I don't know if there's any merit to this idea, but it seems | to me that saturation can become a real problem. | | At this point skipping a story or feed ad in Instagram is | like a nearly instant reflex for me. | | Plus, the programming on the recommendations is laughably | amateur for company as resourceful as Meta. If I interact | with an ad one time I'll see the same ad over and over for | days or weeks. | | Sure, I was curious for a second, but it seems strange that | Meta can't tell that I'm not interested anymore just by | monitoring basic usage of the UI. | | At the end of the day the advertiser is the one left paying | for these repeated ineffective ad impressions. | | Somewhat related, I am a little surprised Meta hasn't tried a | Discord-like revenue model where paid annual memberships | bestow quality of life and cosmetic social status types of | benefits. Even if it wasn't their main source of revenue it | could at least diversify the business and lend some stability | to their revenue. | | Facebook's revenue per user is less than $10. Discord charges | $99/year for Nitro. I feel like Meta has such a one-track | mindset on advertising that it doesn't consider different | revenue models for its businesses. | | Meta spends a lot of time talking about the metaverse but | Discord is already the metaverse. Why isn't there a | subscription Meta Quest game pass with Discord-like social | features? It's a no-brainer. | | Where's the "pro" paid version of Instagram? Why doesn't | Instagram sell subscription access to things like exclusive | camera filters, stickers, and editing tools? | | I feel like the company is full of missed business | opportunities. | TylerE wrote: | Actually, that's a real thing advertisers DO want. | | It's called retargeting. | apendleton wrote: | > that's a real thing advertisers DO want | | I think GP is talking about a more specific thing, and | it's one I experience all the time too: that I'll visit a | website briefly one time, by accident, or to satisfy some | curiosity, or look up the specifications on something I | already own, or to get a link to send to a friend, or | whatever other non-purchase reason, and then get shown | ads for their thing over and over and over again until | the end of time despite the fact that there's a 0% chance | that I will ever buy it. | | I'm sure it's true that, in the general case, advertisers | want to show ads to customers multiple times, but in | these particular cases, they shouldn't want to show them | to _me_ -- I 'm definitely not going to buy the thing, | and they're wasting their money, and it seems like | Facebook ought to be able to better differentiate between | users like me who will definitely not convert and users | who might (like GP said: seems like there ought to be | detectable patterns in the way I do or don't engage with | the content that should signal my lack of interest). | magic_hamster wrote: | >At the end of the day the advertiser is the one left | paying for these repeated ineffective ad impressions. | | If advertisers had a better option, Meta will have gone out | of business by next week. | dpkirchner wrote: | 49% ads, 49% content, 2% "news feed isn't available right | now" if I scroll too far (a couple dozen screens). Been like | this for ages. | stingraycharles wrote: | What does it mean when attribution is a mess? Or efficiency | fluctuating? | | Does this imply that Facebook is showing ads in places they | should not be, because they have inventory they cannot sell? | beckingz wrote: | Hard to confirm that your ads are converting, and wild | daily/weekly fluctuations in return on ad spend. | ssharp wrote: | I haven't done much with Facebook ads since 2019, but back then | the UI was a flaky, buggy mess. It was pretty terrible to work | with. At one point they had a "Power Editor" and then a simpler | ads interface. They combined these into one unified tool and it | was pretty rough. | tonymet wrote: | It should be both reassuring & unsettling to know that even | experts can't forecast the future. FB / Meta made two large stock | bybacks, one with cash and one with debt, at a very high premium. | | Just in case you may feel bad for your investments, just remember | no one can forecast the future. | kobalsky wrote: | > FB / Meta made two large stock bybacks, one with cash and one | with debt, at a very high premium. | | I don't know enough to understand if that is clearly a bad move | or if maybe they had a different strategy. | | I mean if they wanted to buyback their own stock it seems that | they are not in a position to time the market. Waiting to buy | low feels like they are shorting themselves. | BbzzbB wrote: | They did heavy handed repurchases during the quarter where | they saw the first active user dip, before announcing it, | then barely did any in the following quarter after the stock | took a 40% dive. I'm still bullish Meta, but their capital | allocation with regards to buybacks was horrendous to say the | least. | moolcool wrote: | My heart goes out to anybody losing their job, but it's always | fantastic to see bad things happening to Meta. | kernel-dump wrote: | I wonder what the effects of Meta failing would have on | society? I can't think of competing social network for people | to migrate to. Would topic forums see a rise in popularity | again or would sites like Reddit draw in some of those users. | pinko wrote: | I wonder what this means for people I know with accepted offers | who haven't yet started. | bagels wrote: | They should start looking for something else as a backup. | gen220 wrote: | Anecdotally (I have a friend in that situation), no impact as | confirmed by their in-house recruiter. | | But it might depend on whether they were pre-allocated to a | team (which I understand is very rare, but it does happen). | moolcool wrote: | If I were you I would tell them to break off contact because | Meta is actively causing irreparable damage to society as we | know it. | filoleg wrote: | Yeah, and the reply they would receive from their friend | would be a polite request to touch grass. | | People in the real world use instagram and whatsapp all the | time without any moral qualms. The main reason facebook as a | product is on a decline is because it is simply not | interesting to younger people anymore. And even then, FB | still manages to occasionally produce features that capture a | lot of the audience back. FB marketplace has been a great hit | in terms of replacing craigslist. | | I am not a Meta employee, and have never been one. But the | hate hard-on some people on HN have against Meta just gets | really ridiculous at times. We decry echochambers on social | media all the time, but are perfectably comfortable falling | into ones of our own, without trying to understand how the | world outside is really like. | moolcool wrote: | I don't think "touch grass" is an appropriate response to | legitimate questions of professional ethics. Comments like | this are why I think ethics courses should be mandatory for | any CS or engineering degree. | filoleg wrote: | Stating "you should brake the contract because Meta is | causing irreparable damage to society" is not a | "legitimate question of professional ethics." It's like | saying "you should be rushing the capitol, because | democrats are causing irreparable damage to society by | stealing the election", and then claiming it was a | legitimate question of ethics of democracy. For both of | which, the suggestion to touch grass feels pretty | appropriate. | | I agree with your take on ethics courses being mandatory | for CS or engineering college students though. It was | mandatory at my college, and I found it to be pretty | useful. | moolcool wrote: | Who is talking about breaking a contract? I said breaking | contact (with recruiters). Your example provides an | equivalency so false, I don't really know where to start | with it. If I were to alter your analogy it'd be closer | to: "Ghost your recruiter, don't work for the Biden | Whitehouse" which, if they actually _were_ evil, would be | a reasonable thing to say to a friend IMO. | worik wrote: | This is a well trodden path. They cannot grow forever, nor can | the economy. But investors will expect/want monotonic growth. In | profits if not in revenue | | I expect Meta will be closing labs in the USA and opening them in | other, cheaper, English speaking companies. | petilon wrote: | > _"I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by | now.." Zuckerberg said._ | | Zuck is blaming the economy, but Meta's real problem is that | Apple tightened iOS privacy. Meta had built a business on | tracking people, and when iOS tightened privacy, Meta could not | target ads as effectively as before. | threatofrain wrote: | The economy is an issue, but the "fault" is not in the economy | or the CEO in that there is no fault. A business is not | responsible for retaining employees even if the economy is | strong. If we prescriptively believe that people _ought_ have | money to maintain a basic standard of living then we should | have the government provide this service using public money and | not private ad-funded money. | | It is modern corporate style to have CEO's shed tears | (sometimes literally) to show that their cold calculations | actually have love behind them, but this is all just PR. We | should recognize Mark's statement for what it is -- standard | corporate PR. And we should offer such statements as much | respect as standard corporate verbiage deserves and not get | into the substance of the statements as there typically is | none. | dc-programmer wrote: | Stages of grief. First he blamed employees, now the economy.. | SantalBlush wrote: | CEOs are collectively hammering these talking points about | the economy, pretending that it's 2008 all over again. They | want their workers scared. | | The thing is, this isn't 2008, not by a long shot. They can | keep complaining, but the jobs numbers speak for themselves. | andsoitis wrote: | If you think the world's economy is in good shape, I have | an investment to sell you. | 1270018080 wrote: | Cancel culture is the only scapegoat left | laweijfmvo wrote: | What he meant was "I had hoped _our_stock_price_ would have | more clearly stabilized by now..." | | They over-hired low[er] quality employees (by his own | admission) when the stock exploded in 2020. Now they'll do | anything to avoid official layoffs to save face. | otikik wrote: | And their feed is increasingly worse. We might be the product, | but this product can walk away. | rightbyte wrote: | That was an interesting twist to the barn methaphor actually. | ilamont wrote: | Not the only problem. Zuck's betting the farm on VR, which is | sucking up resources and attention. Even if it reaches critical | adoption, how many years before it starts generating true | profit? | m00x wrote: | It's definitely a problem, but the economic downturn is a lot | more significant. Meta allegedly got around Apple's privacy | rules. | | I used to work in user tracking, and it's very easy to track | people down to near-unique from several metrics. | nostromo wrote: | Apple tightening privacy while TikTok is eating their lunch... | Not to mention the Metaverse is/was a giant distraction. | kweingar wrote: | Not very relevant, but an observation: | | I've noticed that users on HN like to use the phrase "eating | their lunch" to describe the dynamic between TikTok and | Facebook. | | It would be interesting to search HN comments from the past | 12 months for "eating their lunch" and analyze what | proportion of them refer to TikTok. | wollsmoth wrote: | Metaverse is an interesting idea, but they're too quick to | hail it as the feature of the company imo. It just looks like | an expensive, boring, video game right now. | defterGoose wrote: | | Metaverse is an interesting idea... | | It's really not though, nor is it an original one. There | are real people with real problems in the world and we've | seen over and over that increasingly virtualizing our | interactions, with a few exceptions, is a great way of | kicking those problems down the road. | wollsmoth wrote: | An idea can be interesting and still be a huge waste of | time. I don't think it'll end well for Meta. It'll be | super interesting to see how it plays out. I think we | might end up with some sweet VR tech, I just don't think | it's going to give FB the kind of business they think it | will. | drfuzzy89 wrote: | Is it known whether this sort of hiring freeze affects all | levels? I have a friend who's in-progress for a staff role at | Meta and I had heard in the past that staff was often "immune to | hiring freezes." | loeg wrote: | "Active interview loops will continue," but also "we will not | make any offers until the freeze is lifted." So, go figure. | | Edit: IC7+ is explicitly not frozen. | | > The only roles that will remain open are SWE IC7+, Data | Center roles, and 2023 Intern, Pathway and AI STE class hiring | laweijfmvo wrote: | Imagine being of IC7+ caliber and voluntarily deciding to | jump on this sinking ship. I doubt such a person exists. | Might be an opportunity to upsell yourself into an IC7[+] | offer, though. | zeroonetwothree wrote: | Money is still a good motivator | jvanderbot wrote: | My uneducated opinion is this company had some downsizing and | restructuring coming. But the leading edge of a big wave of | downsizes might look like this, too. | kansface wrote: | Yeah, I'm with you, and then I read 83K employees doing | Metaverse? Simply amazing! That must be at least 20 billion | dollars a year! The correction in the tech sector has plenty | more correcting to do it seems. | ryanwaggoner wrote: | That's the total Meta headcount, across Facebook, Instagram, | Messenger, WhatsApp, Oculus, etc. | orangepurple wrote: | Inverse QQQ? | selectodude wrote: | SQQQ is up 10 percent today. | gumby wrote: | I doubt it. | | My guess is Google/Alphabet will do the same, as they have too | high a proportion of people doing things that are neither basic | research or contributing to revenue in any way. You can see how | that can happen when you have an unconstrained gusher of money. | There's effectively zero feedback. However given the weakness | of their management (see: gusher of money + lack of focus) it's | unlikely that the cuts will make any difference either way. | Probably many good people will simply take a buy out and then | go get another interesting job. | | Netfix? Given their culture and their market problems one could | imagine it, but their culture seems to have steered them into | trying to fight back. So probably not a big wave, just some | trimming, as they have already done. | | As for the rest of maAMA-n? They appear to be doing fine; | Amazon's retail challenges are more than made up by AWS. Apple | and MS are trundling along as if nothing is happening in the | macroenvironment (and they each have 40+ years to have worked | out their systems). | hinkley wrote: | Please use "MANAMANA" instead. | | (doot doo do doo doot) | gumby wrote: | Netflix never deserved to be in FAANG anyway -- seems like | it was just there to make the acronym work. | | Therefore your suggestion sounds great! | | How about: Microsoft Alphabet Netflix Apple Meta Amazon | Nvidia Alibaba | bagacrap wrote: | amd? | tempsy wrote: | Apple is down like 6% today on reports of soft iPhone sales. | In an economy where people are actually belt tightening | luxury hardware sales are not exactly recession proof | noir_lord wrote: | They also have a cash mountain and I'd like to own a | company that makes 94% of last years iphone sales. | | Over 200bn the last time I saw a figure (90bn in cash, the | rest invested). | | https://www.investors.com/etfs-and- | funds/sectors/sp500-compa... | tempsy wrote: | I'm not an Apple bear, I'm saying that it's a bit naive | to say that any company will not be negatively affected | by a recession that can result in downsizing or layoffs. | colinmhayes wrote: | DOesn't matter how much cash they have. Ownership will | demand cuts if earnings fall. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | Netflix looks shaky as hell. They need a huge bet, like Rings | of Power or House of Dragons. The entire programming looks so | completely awful cookie cutter at the moment. | gumby wrote: | They are trying to make a play for games. Seems like a | market even more risky than films, but whatever. | azemetre wrote: | I'm shocked they don't do more merchandising, seems like | easy money since they know what shows are popular. | what_ever wrote: | > As for the rest of maAMA-n? They appear to be doing fine; | Amazon's retail challenges are more than made up by AWS. | Apple and MS are trundling along as if nothing is happening | in the macroenvironment (and they each have 40+ years to have | worked out their systems). | | Apple - | | https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/18/23268953/apple-slow- | hirin... | | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-16/apple- | lay... | | Microsoft | | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-20/microsoft. | .. | | https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-scoop-22 | | Amazon | | https://www.protocol.com/newsletters/sourcecode/amazon- | slows... | bilsbie wrote: | I hope they don't restructure the fact checking team. Who would | protect us? | stephc_int13 wrote: | The initially planned expenses for the year were about $95B. | | I know this is pretty common for those big corporations. | | But I think that should be put in perspective. | | At 500M over more than 10 years Star Citizen is considered a scam | or a waste of money and at least a proof of mismanagement. | drummer wrote: | Every dumpster fire, no matter how intense it burns, eventually | dies out. | juice_bus wrote: | What an awful way to announce that. Q&A is over folks, everyone | go back to their desk and start working again - good luck! | ccooffee wrote: | Such a poor plan. Dropping this in a Q&A means that nothing | else said will be remembered. It's also being implemented in a | completely asinine way: "individual teams will sort out how to | handle headcount changes". Take no culpability for anything, | and ensure that the confusion and anger targets the bottom-most | level of management. What a classy move! | n0us wrote: | I'm sure that senior leadership will also be held accountable | for the over-hiring they mandated and their teams will be | among the first to reduce headcount \s | jollyllama wrote: | I'm curious if there was a plant to say "hey are there going to | be layoffs." | | "Well, Joe, it's funny you ask..." | Eumenes wrote: | they've been over zealous with their hiring for many years, this | was bound to happen during economic uncertainty. tack on | competition from tiktok, failing metaverse, privacy and political | related scandals, and there you have it: a sinking ship | ceejayoz wrote: | Well, guess that means the multi-year bugs in their API aren't | getting fixed any time soon. | woeirua wrote: | Zuck is absolutely going to call back all the remote engineers | that he hired over the past two years to the office, and just | like with Tesla, those who refuse will be involuntarily | separated. Work from home, _is_ going to die at the megacorps. | UncleMeat wrote: | This is my fear at Google. I'm now remote for family reasons. | If for some reason they decide to do layoffs the "cut the | remote staff" approach might feel attractive for foolish execs. | rosywoozlechan wrote: | Lots of smaller companies that have comparable compensation | will continue to offer work from home. If a non-FANG position | isn't a dealbreaker for you, you can do just fine if Google | does end up requiring everyone to go back to the office. | chrisco255 wrote: | Meta already did this / have been doing this. But I think Meta | will suffer more from this choice than the employees let go as | a result. | erikpukinskis wrote: | "The Metaverse Company" declaring that they need employees to | be physically in the same office would be a damning admission | of failure. | blinded wrote: | passed the code and debugging challenge a month ago. recruiting | emails have gone cold, figured this was the case. | arberx wrote: | Tech is reflexive. Since most tech/saas companies sell/support | other saas companies, they all go down. | | Think about all the startups who rely on AWS, Apple computers, | and Facebook ads. What happens when they all die? | | The tech bull run is over, and we'll find out where the bodies | lie soon. | dimgl wrote: | This is really hyperbolic. Facebook is not even closely | comparable to those. Additionally, there's no market indication | that won't be a need for services like AWS or hardware provided | by Apple. | | It's really weird how many people seem to _want_ the tech | industry to just wither and die. It's unlikely and unrealistic. | There may be a sharp correction, but it's unrealistic to think | that the behemoths with a moat are going anywhere. | arberx wrote: | No one said anything about tech dying (I said startups), but | a repricing for sure. | | We don't even know the market demand for these products | because cheap money has made everyone a startup founder, and | every company pivoted to providing a "tech" solution when it | might not have been economically viable or provided any | profit. | andsoitis wrote: | > No one said anything about tech dying (I said startups) | | You wrote: "Since most tech/saas companies sell/support | other saas companies, they all go down." | lallysingh wrote: | AWS is healthy. Apple is effectively immortal, but will | slowly commoditize (10+ yrs) from lack of innovation. | | Meta/Goog are (eng staff wise) oversized for their output. | Both of their leaderships aren't leading very well. | | Despite the hype and capabilities offered, none of the big | players have find ways to use their AI assets. That's a poor | indicator of their future. You can almost smell the | disruption coming.. | bllguo wrote: | good point, other than applications in adtech for google/fb | the only big tech company that is actually doing something | with their ML expertise is nvidia IMO | flyinglizard wrote: | Where exactly do you advertise your blue collar business if not | on a Meta or Google property? | | They don't sell tech. They use tech. They sell ads. | | I do agree that the bull run for companies that sell tech will | subside, maybe over correcting in the short term. | troon-lover wrote: | ianbutler wrote: | Oh no the market has corrected to 2019 levels because the | ridiculous amount of free cash has stopped! Clearly the era of | tech is over and we should all wrap up and go home. | | I don't think there is anything substantial here to suggest | this is anything other than a normal recession and even if this | was like the dotcom bubble, these companies aren't like dotcom | era startups. They're massive behemoths intertwined with the | fabric of American society, not to mention their warchests make | most other companies blush. | hinkley wrote: | 2005 was a pretty shitty time to be in software. I could do | without another one of those. If we avoid that level of suck | for another 10 years I can just take early retirement. | time_to_smile wrote: | > I don't think there is anything substantial here to suggest | this is anything other than a normal recession | | Then I'm guessing you haven't been paying much attention to | anything. | | Have you seen what's happening in the bond market these days? | Looked at the insane actions the BoE is taking coupled with | their insane tax policy? Have you seen the rising dollar are | you aware the threat that makes to the entire global credit | system? | | This is literally just getting started. | ianbutler wrote: | I don't know that I'm particularly concerned about the UK | causing a global economic crisis. I am aware of what's | happening with them, I'm currently vacationing in Ireland | so it's been on the news but I just don't know that the UK | will be anything to cause larger global consequence. | | I was not aware of the US bond market crumbling, and having | a quick read it doesn't seem to be, it seems to be a | consequence of the fed raising rates which will obviously | not continue indefinitely. | | To be honest it still seems like a normal recession but | with a bunch of hyperbolic news headlines attached. | time_to_smile wrote: | The downvote arrow as slowly become a "truths I don't want to | hear" button on HN. | | Too much cheap money and a grow at any costs mentality has lead | to exactly this is problem where every tech company is very | tightly coupled with every other tech company. | | I'm in the B2B space for one of the many non-profitable, | recently IPO'd companies. As far as companies goes, this one is | pretty sane. Healthy growth, a product that makes sense, | thoughtful leadership. However when I look at our customers the | vast majority are small tech startups, many of which will | obviously cease to exist in a down turn. | | When I look at our spending, it's mostly to other larger tech | companies, those big tech companies everyone wants to work for. | | But those small startups, that have weird products that don't | make sense, price sensitive customers, unsustainable growth and | crazy leadership, they make up a huge amount of our revenue. | When they start to collapse, we'll have to downsize, both in | headcount and in services we pay for. And we won't be alone. | | On top of that, I look at my own spending. My other tech | friends and I have no problem paying what would have been crazy | amounts for services like Door Dash, or a constant stream of | slightly over price but so convenient stuff from Amazon. Why | not subscribe to another streaming services, it's only | $10/month. So many of these direct to consumer companies mostly | exist because of highly paid techworkers that have more cash | than they need. | | I get laid off I'll just pick up my food myself, I'm not going | to be ordering everything of Amazon, I'm cancelling all but my | most active subscriptions. | | There are a lot of positive feedbacks in the current tech | ecosystem what will continue to be triggered and continue to | bring down the massive, massive tech bubble we're in. | uladzislau wrote: | It's not just Meta, many other companies are on the hiring | freeze. Probably the reason is not fulfilled Covid period bets on | growth and expansion. | SwSwinger wrote: | Somehow, Meta managed to overhire in low cost of living areas and | will likely look at employee overhead when considering where to | downsize. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-29 23:01 UTC)