[HN Gopher] Meta lays off 11,000 people ___________________________________________________________________ Meta lays off 11,000 people Author : technics256 Score : 1856 points Date : 2022-11-09 11:11 UTC (11 hours ago) (HTM) web link (about.fb.com) (TXT) w3m dump (about.fb.com) | posedge wrote: | I'm surprised by this direct and candid tone. | jacooper wrote: | I'm still surprised they are using the fb.com domain. Why haven't | they move to meta.com? | jacooper wrote: | Moved* | yashg wrote: | 16 weeks of base pay + 6 months of health insurance and | everything else, looks like a decent severance package at least. | This seems better handled than Twitter's layoffs. | nsenifty wrote: | +2 weeks base pay for every year of service with no cap. | blsapologist42 wrote: | Yup. One person I know is getting around 10 months of | severance(!). Actually seems like a sweet deal. | kadomony wrote: | Musk only authorized 3 months' severance to substantiate the 90 | days needed to prevent being sued into oblivion. The man is | going to do the bare minimum for his employees to recoup his | loss in making the acquisition. | FraaJad wrote: | The bare minimum would be 60 days severance to stave off | California's WARN act, isn't it? | consumer451 wrote: | That is really generous. But man, I'm sitting here really | hoping my sibling who works at Meta is not getting axed. | | He took the job because of the money, after our parents had to | declare a medical bankruptcy. The increase in salary allowed | him to pay for their housing which they cannot afford on SS | benefits. | | Even under those circumstances he still would not take the job | until he got my super-anti-Zuck butt on-board with the idea. | | I hope people realize that reasons for working at Meta may be | more complicated than it might seem on the surface. | | </rant> | | UPDATE: he still has a job, whew | yashg wrote: | Of course layoffs are never pleasant and I hope and wish no | one ever has to face them. But in the capitalist world we | live in, they are inevitable. I am glad your brother has his | job. Another sad thing about the uber capitalist society that | US is, are the medical bankruptcies. In a developed country | like the US, people shouldn't go bankrupt trying to avail | healthcare. But that's a completely different discussion and | let's not go there. | ggregoire wrote: | I've read several times in those comments that this is a | "decent" severance package. | | I'm not that familiar with the US legalities and practices, | what's considered a "good" and "very good" severance package | over there, if 16 weeks of base pay + 6 months of health | insurance (for the employees and their families btw) is only | "decent"? Is it common to get way better? From abroad we think | that the severance packages in the US are at the will of the | employers and so are usually very bad. | lljk_kennedy wrote: | Honest question - what does 'take accountability' and 'take | responsibility' actually look like for Zuckerberg here? | theCrowing wrote: | It means nothing especially with 50% voting shares. The funny | thing about these layoffs is how they just go by the C-Suites | without even denting their value. | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | Honest question - what do you expect it to look like beside | making the statement and giving employees a more than gracious | severance package to back up the words? | lljk_kennedy wrote: | I guess in an ideal world, the board removes him as CEO? | atemerev wrote: | Why? He is making a correct decision from the business | point of view, it is unclear who will be the replacement | CEO, and there are similar layoffs across other tech | companies. The board has zero incentive of changing the CEO | now. | periphrasis wrote: | This decision is correct, given all the incorrect | strategic decisions he made leading up to it. The markets | have clearly lost a lot of confidence in his leadership, | and I would have to imagine the remaining employees have | too. Stepping down would be a drastic step, but merely | stating "I take responsibility" is unlikely on its own to | restore confidence in his ability to right the ship | either. | pmontra wrote: | This decision might be correct but the previous one was | wrong. In his own words: | | "I made the decision to significantly increase our | investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way | I expected." | | So, keep him to downsize the company and replace him when | it's time to start growing again? | lljk_kennedy wrote: | It's evidently clear now, his "correct decision from a | business point of view" to increase investments during | Covid was wrong as they resulted in these 11,000 people | being let go. I think the same could be said for the | increased investment in metaverse, which I imagine is | predicated on the prior large growth of people moving | online during Covid, which is now returning to the mean. | | I think their share price has taken strong corrections | due to these decisions. I think that's an incentive for a | board to take action? | | (I'm purposefully ignoring the ouroborus that is Zuck's | control of voting shares that protects him here.) | yreg wrote: | He has the majority of the voting shares so it's rightfully | his decision. | lordnacho wrote: | He goes and asks an executive recruitment firm to find a | successor and spends more time on the board. | | Yeah it sounds tough but if he'd hired a guy who oversaw | what's just happened, he would have fired him. | greenthrow wrote: | When you _actually_ take responsibklity and accountsbility in | the real world and not the bs world of C-suite executives, it | means there are consequences for you. Might mean he steps | down from his position, it might mean he gets a his | compensation package cut, it might mean something else. But | it means more than empty words. | [deleted] | bawolff wrote: | I mean, if you get into a minor car accident, taking | responsibility basically means paying for damage to the | car. To me it seems like taking responsibility for hiring | too many people by ensuring a nice severance package and | paying for access to external hiring consultants for people | who want it, is pretty analogous to how ordinary people | take responsibility when they accidentally do something | that wrongs someone else i.e. They try and fix the effects | of the wrong. | | Taking responsibility means trying to make it right. It | doesn't mean taking a hit personally, unless that hit helps | make the situation right. | greenthrow wrote: | He's not personally paying for those severance packages. | Is this really that hard to understand? | bawolff wrote: | Does it matter as long as he is the cause of them getting | compensated? | | Vengence isn't the same as justice. If you care more | about zuck personally hurting than laid off employees | being compensated, you are after the former not the | latter. | | To use the car accideny analogy - do you also think its a | cop out for people to have insurance? | namdnay wrote: | he's taken a major hit to his personal wealth as a | consequence of this bad decision, so I'd say the | consequences are pretty real for him | severino wrote: | I would expect that he doesn't say he would take | responsibility if that doesn't mean anything at all. | FartyMcFarter wrote: | Only he can punish himself, effectively. He has control of the | company. | jstx1 wrote: | This question comes up in every layoff thread. | | It doesn't mean "this will have negative consequences on me | personally". | | It means "I don't blame anyone else for this". | fsloth wrote: | My english is non-native but I would expect when someone says | "I take accountability and responsibility" to means exactly | that and I have a hard time figuring out what else it could | mean. | | The OP sounds like they would expect the person to perform | some sort of public penance or resign. Which IMO is the wrong | thing to do when making a mistake. The correct thing is to | own up to your mistakes and hopefully learn from them. | lljk_kennedy wrote: | Accountability to me, means that your actions have | consequences. Saying "I'm accountable" but it not having | any material affect based on the outcome of your actions | feels unfair to most people. Especially when it's really | 11,000 people who are the ones to actually feel the | consequences. | | Zuck's net worth dropping from one unfathomable level of | wealth, to another unfathomable level of wealth, isn't | really a consequence here. | namdnay wrote: | as i said in another comment, for 90% of the world's | population, the level of wealth fo the average facebook | employee is unfathomable too. so it's hard to play the | "oh he's wealthy so there are no real consequences" card | just for zuckerberg | fsloth wrote: | So each time someone makes a mistake there should be a | material consequence to the person? | | Would this not create an atmosphere of fear and drive | society towards a fixed mindset where everyone would in | case of mistake try to _hide_ their mistake? | | AFAIK the biggest upgrade to global aviation safety | happened when mistakes were de-penalized, and all | stakeholders could honestly discuss what went wrong and | how to improve things in the future. | | IMO, the biggest issues is not punishment, but | understanding that a mistake was made, and an honest | attempt to avoid similar mistakes in the future. | | If a perpetrator fails to honestly see the harm in their | actions, and perpetuate the same mistake repeatedly, then | yes, they should probably face secondary consequences to | make it understandable to every stakeholder that such | behaviour is not acceptable. The reasoning here, however, | is not some sense of global justice, but to simply de- | normalize the pathological behaviour (if you repeat | something without consequences it becomes 'accepted way | of working'). | jstx1 wrote: | Even "perpetrator" is harsh - overhiring is a business | mistake, not some ethical or legal violation. It's part | of the deal - you get hired, and you can get laid off | later. It sucks for the employees to go through but they | aren't victims. | lljk_kennedy wrote: | I think you're dishonestly trying to equate a CEO having | to fire 11,000 people due to his decisions, to something | like an engineer wiping out a DB and having to restore | from backups. | | If suddenly, 11,000 people died today in airplane crashes | in a single company's air fleet, you're be sure that | their CEO would be under question. I'm not saying this is | a fair analogy - but just as similar, your one wasn't | either. | fsloth wrote: | I suppose it boils down to how serious is the mistake of | the CEO from the point of view of society, Facebook | owners and other stakeholders. | | I could imagine Facebook doing things that would indeed | merit the sacking of CEO. For instance, doing something | that leads to the death of 11k people would warrant | severe consequences. I have no idea how Facebook could do | that, but on the same par. They have all the data to do | tons of nasty things. | | I would view accidentally hiring 11k people from the | point of view of the above interested parties indeed on | the level of an engineer wiping db via accident (not | negligence). | | I imagine the mistake would be something like, you look | at the market, you see it skyrocketing, you feed the | numbers to your trusty excel sheet that has served you | years and say, hey, we need more people. Only when market | conditions normalize you realize the mistake. | | Honestly, I really can't see the harm done here. People | lose their jobs all the time. Corporation hire and fire. | Why would this be any worse than standard practice in | corporate america? (Of course it sucks to be laid off) | matt_s wrote: | If you look at his net worth, which is likely to be mostly on | paper, it has suffered a lot. I know its a "cry me a river", | "worlds smallest violin" type of thing but for someone at his | level that is the material impact. I would imagine someone | with empathy will feel horrible about having to do this to | 11,000 people's livelihoods. I'm not implying Zuck has or | doesn't have empathy, I don't know him. I'm just saying this | likely has an impact. It might also have a business impact on | future hiring, forecasting, etc. for the company as well. | Maybe the pace of funding in the VR BigBet gets pulled back | some? We'll know in a couple quarters. | [deleted] | system2 wrote: | Those people knowingly didn't escape the sinking boat and | decided to work at Meta. We can say this for every social | media platform company and their employees. I'd work at | microsoft but not at snapchat or facebook. These apps are | just trends and they go away in 10-15 years. They past | maturity phase and in decline for the last 5 years already. | tyingq wrote: | He's not my favorite person, but he did use language that said | he, personally, predicted the business conditions wrong, | overhired, etc. You don't have to look far to find layoff | messages that blame covid or other outside forces and don't | take any blame. | j-krieger wrote: | Guy has lost dozens of billions of dollars. As far as | accountability goes he's pretty up there. | bawolff wrote: | Its just business speak for "I'm sorry, its my fault". | | I don't think that's a bad thing. Its always worthwhile to | apologize even if there is nothing else to be done. | namdnay wrote: | Losing three quarters of his net worth? | lljk_kennedy wrote: | Meh, it's inconsequential given he's never going to want for | money. | namdnay wrote: | if we're going down that road, being fired is pretty | inconsequential for a silicon valley software engineer. | whoever your next employer is, relative to 90% of the | world's population you'll still have a richer and more | comfortable life than they could ever dream of | jerpint wrote: | Have all departments been equally impacted? I am curious if | machine learning engineers have also been laid off | nabaraz wrote: | > Severance: We will pay 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional | weeks for every year of service, with no cap. | | This is really good. If you have worked for 5 years, you are | getting almost 2 years of pay. | | I was wrong here. I read it as 16 weeks per each year of service. | refrigerator wrote: | 5 years => 26 weeks = 0.5 years of pay, right? | FartyMcFarter wrote: | Possibly dumb question, but how did you get to two years? | Brigand wrote: | Why is 26 weeks two years of pay? | steve_gh wrote: | 16 + (2 * 5) = 26 | | In my book that is 6 month's pay | KvanteKat wrote: | I suspect OP may have been going for a variation on the old | "Programmer returns with zero eggs and 12 gallons of milk | after having been asked to get one gallon of milk and if they | have eggs to buy a dozen"-joke, but it falls flat in this | instance since it relies on an interpretation bordering on | deliberate misconstrual (i.e. applying the modifier "for each | year of service" to the whole phrase "16 weeks plus two | additional weeks" rather than just to the latter fragment | "two additional weeks"). | Macha wrote: | You're getting 16 + (5x2) = 26 weeks of pay, not (16+2) x 5 = | 90 weeks. | gmac wrote: | 16 + 2 * 5 = 26, implying six months' pay, not two years? | t0tal wrote: | isn't it just 26 weeks extra? 16 weeks + (2 weeks * 5 years) | rfoo wrote: | Wait, how is 26 weeks 2 years? | iamben wrote: | 5 years service would be 26 weeks / half a year, no? Am I | reading this differently to you? | [deleted] | bujak300 wrote: | I think it would be 5 years times 2 extra weeks - 10 extra | weeks on top of the 16 weeks severance | maest wrote: | You may have misread "weeks" as "months". | [deleted] | tjbiddle wrote: | 16 + (5*2) = 26 / 4.33 = 6 months? Unsure where you're getting | 2 years. | | Edit: Lol - OP posted less than 3 minutes ago & there were no | replies. Before I finished my comment there are now a dozen | others with the same. | jleyank wrote: | ? No coffee yet this morning, but isn't 5 years 26 weeks of pay | for severance? And depending on how the severance contract is | written, you might not be able to work elsewhere during part or | all of this. Perhaps just 60 days due to WARN (in the us) where | you are "working" for meta before the money is unencumbered. | Read closely. If you have a lawyer friend, ask their opinion. | matt_s wrote: | If you want a math problem corrected, or have math homework | kids, post it as a comment here on HN. | patagonia wrote: | Getting tired of "I take responsibility" without taking | responsibility. | zmxz wrote: | Could you highlight in detail how responsibility wasn't taken | in your opinion and which parts of the text we've all read | highlights that? | patagonia wrote: | Nope. | zmxz wrote: | Would you say then that it's safe to assume you didn't read | the text and you merely reacted to what you thought was | written? | patagonia wrote: | Nope. I just don't have the time. Would you say you are | being patronizing and are making assumptions? | Hackbraten wrote: | I'm feeling sorry for everyone affected. | | Let's hope that this isn't going to impact Buck [0] too much. | It's one of the best things Facebook has ever made. | | [0]: https://github.com/facebook/buck/tree/dev | yalogin wrote: | All these companies and guys just began feeling very rich and | wanted to corner the market by hiring more. This is the reason | every company hired more and more people. Mark was probably very | bullish on VR given covid and remote work taking off. Musk felt | similarly rich and bought Twitter. | technics256 wrote: | Severance summary: Severance. We will pay 16 | weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year | of service, with no cap. PTO. We'll pay for all | remaining PTO time. RSU vesting. Everyone impacted | will receive their November 15, 2022 vesting. | Health insurance. We'll cover the cost of healthcare for | people and their families for six months. Career | services. We'll provide three months of career support | with an external vendor, including early access to | unpublished job leads. Immigration support. I know | this is especially difficult if you're here on a visa. | There's a notice period before termination and some visa | grace periods, which means everyone will have time to make | plans and work through their immigration status. We have | dedicated immigration specialists to help guide you based | on what you and your family need. | whoooooo123 wrote: | 4 month's paid holiday? This is the kind of severance that | would make me wish I'd been laid off. | nvarsj wrote: | No RSUs though, which make up 30-50% of compensation | depending on level. | scarface74 wrote: | With the stock being down 70% from its all time high, the | ratio has changed drastically. | agilob wrote: | Or have something similar guaranteed by EU Worker Protection. | I was made redundant a few years ago and was paid 4.5 month | salary on my last day. | namdnay wrote: | yes but having both the sky-high US salaries AND | termination conditions similar to Europe is kind of a win- | win | agilob wrote: | Only for sky-high earners. Are low paid keyworkers | getting same benefits or becoming homeless? | yreg wrote: | This is quite good even by European standards. If you were | paid 4.5 months because the law said so then it isn't | harmonized, because in my EU country it is only 3 months | notice afaik. | | Also not sure if the Meta severance applies to contractors | as well, but many engineers work as contractors by which | they of course opt out of worker protections. | agilob wrote: | It's not the same as workers protection law is an EU | directive so each country implemented it on its own. | ciupicri wrote: | What are you talking about and in what country? | 10241024 wrote: | 4 months of severance + 2 extra weeks for every year of | service i.e. 20 weeks (~5 months) if you've been there for | the last 10 years. So ~9 months paid holiday in total. Not | bad at all. | coffeeblack wrote: | That sounds pretty good. Even better than good. | mrtksn wrote: | Is it if you are not a home owner still? The problem with not | being a home owner is that you have very high burn rate | because the market was able to optimize for housing profit | extraction - that is, significant portion of the compensation | of high earners ended up in the pocket of property owners. | | Suddenly, these high earners are no longer high earners but | they can't instantly transfer their situation to property | owners which means they have only 16 weeks or a bit more to | start receiving at least equal paycheque. It often takes more | than that to start working somewhere white collar and since | Meta is not the only one doing lay offs, it probably means | that they will not be able to start receiving similar | paycheque when they continue having the same burn rate(or | maybe higher, because inflation). | | I don't say that Meta is necessarily wronging these people | but I can't keep but thinking about what it means being | compensated for the work you are doing and the security of | your life. If you take home 10K every month and distribute 9K | of it just to sustain life then your compensation is actually | 1K/month. | | Tech layoffs are happening this year and its probably well | justified but I have a feeling that other parts of the | economy is also not functioning right and people will get | screwed because their business relationship(compensation and | cost of doing business structure) isn't fair. | [deleted] | [deleted] | fleddr wrote: | Surely this is a vast exaggeration. | | Rent should not take more than 25% of your income, 33% | worst case. In some countries/jurisdictions that's even | part of legibility requirements. | | If rent/utilities are in the range of 75% or more as you | seem to imply, there would be literally no point at all to | work in Big Tech. | mrtksn wrote: | There are a lot of people doing room share to take the | cost of rent down or commute long distance. You can | definitely balance between price, commute, comfort, | privacy, grownupship and self respect. No surprise that | many people really, really want to fully work from home | so that they can better optimize. | | 9K is exaggeration of course, that would be quite | irresponsible but it would be also the only way to put | you in a lifestyle of a person who makes 5K a month. | WastingMyTime89 wrote: | That seems pretty standard to me. | | Here the law mandates a three months notice. Then severance | depends of how long you have worked for the company. It is a | quarter of a month per year you have been employed for the | first ten years and a third of a month per year after that. | | But this lay off would most likely be illegal here anyway. | You have to face a downturn or unforeseen events impacting | your ability to compete to do mass layoff here and Meta is | still hugely profitable. This is putting your shareholders | before your employees. | | Generally when you want to downside here, you compensate | people who agree to leave and the sums involved are more | generous than what Meta is giving. | tudorizer wrote: | I doubt that's the most important part. Maybe for yourself. | | The overall tone and high-level business decisions are much | more interesting. | [deleted] | game_the0ry wrote: | When these big tech layoffs happen, I always wonder what | proportion of those laid off are software engineers. I would not | be surprised if that figure is small. | whatever1 wrote: | TikTok is on a hiring spree in the US. They will get a ton of | talent in great discount | skee8383 wrote: | Meanwhile all you hear on the mainstream news is "Labor shortage" | "No one wants to work" "Companies are having trouble finding | talent". This smells like 2008 all over again. Housing market is | tanking, MSM is lying about employment numbers. Companies are | lying about how many people they are actually hiring. I went | through all this back in 08. you'd put in applications and never | hear anything back, then the next day you'd see the exact | position you applied for listed on the job board again. | mertd wrote: | Labor participation is still below pre-pandemic levels. | | Most labor numbers are dominated by blue collar or service | jobs. They are not fungible with tech labor. | m1117 wrote: | Facebook employees are so much luckier than the poor twitter | employees that no one cared about. | alberth wrote: | I'm surprised they announced this on a prime news day, as oppose | to Friday afternoon where less attention might have been given to | it. | | (My heart goes out to all who lost their job. I'm wishing | everyone well during these tough times.) | tech_tuna wrote: | The news is consumed with the US midterms, it's actually a | great time to make this announcement. | bombcar wrote: | And it's perfectly timed because now no ex employees can | change their vote "out of anger". | alberth wrote: | > no ex employees can change their vote | | Change their vote from what to what? Just curious. | | As an aside, it result appear largely unchanged on seats. | | https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=midterm%20results | bombcar wrote: | It's possible that some percentage of people would change | their vote in retaliation to being fired just before an | election, and probably from "status quo" to "burn it all | down with fire". | | Even if it statistically would have no effect, it avoids | being blamed for it. | itsyaboi wrote: | I'm still having trouble following your train of thought. | I work at Meta and vote for red team, after being laid | off I vote for blue team because... that'll show 'em? | bombcar wrote: | Basically, if you reverse the teams it might make more | sense, especially if you feel the company "leans towards | one team". | | It's a tantrum, it doesn't really make much sense, but | people do it. | | Or step back and a "shit I got laid off today, fuck | waiting in the rain to cast a useless vote". | Sirened wrote: | Assuming most of these people are in the bay and even if | everyone was in one county, none of the elections would | have even flipped (except for districts which are already | tiny such that 13k would dwarf the entire voting | population). Trying to flip any of the bay is like | pissing into the wind. | Joel_Mckay wrote: | I think 11000 people are going to find a brighter future at a | nicer company. | | Does anyone under 40 still use Facebook/Meta anymore? | | =) | jfdbcv wrote: | Ya, Instagram is quite popular among the younger generation, | actually! | itsjustround wrote: | All the people who failed META's shitty interview's are quietly | laughing now. The world is round folks. | dm03514 wrote: | Can the market absorb all these layoffs? Will it significantly | drive salaries down from peak Covid? | raxits wrote: | Best is to know finance/unit economy/burn etc of your employer in | good as well as bad times! | obert wrote: | The timing of the layoff, right before the holiday season, is | especially harsh... | sumitgt wrote: | On the day after the US election as well. Great way to avoid | making the headlines. | Tepix wrote: | Quite a difference between this message and the one Twitter (i.e. | Elon Musk) sent to its employees. | kensai wrote: | As much as people hate Mark Zuckerberg and accuse him of being | a robot, he showed much more humanity in his message in respect | to Ironman Elon. | uxcolumbo wrote: | Totally agree, Phony Stark behaves abysmally towards his | staff - not just at Twitter, but also at Tesla. | | When Elon Musk Tried to Destroy a Tesla Whistleblower | | https://archive.ph/G3HpY | | This is quite viscous and what does that say about what kind | of person he is? Or when he hired a PI to dig up some dirt on | the rescue diver saving those kids from the cave - just | because the diver didn't think Elon's mini submarine idea | wouldn't work. And he called the diver a Pedo as well. | | Someone with that kind of mindset and in power.... is | dangerous. | pelasaco wrote: | Let's start talk about all Zuckerberg, Mcafee, Steve Jobs, | and any other unfair acts committed by any tech | millionaire? Let's talk how Jack Dorsey influenced the | whole political engagement for the democrats (including the | moderation process) at Twitter? Or maybe we can simply | agree that people do questionable things when they have | money, power and influence? | uxcolumbo wrote: | Yes agree. What's the solution? | | But not sure about your comments about Dorsey. See | https://davetroy.medium.com/no-elon-and-jack-are-not- | competi... | pelasaco wrote: | I think Dorsey, based on his politics view influenced how | twitter (and who worked on twitter doing that) does | moderation and per consequence lead to this discussion | about how good the "censorship for good" is. I think | highly controversy somebody that donated a lot of money | to the Democrats to control the public discourse. In that | matters, I think Musk - foreigner and genius - much less | connected and skeptical with any side (red or blue)[1] | than Dorsey or any other twitter leader before Musk. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Views_of_Elon_Musk | uxcolumbo wrote: | I don't know enough about Dorsey's endorsements. | | All I know is we now have a guy in control of Twitter | who: | | - is calling his 100m or so followers to vote for GOP | | - is repeating Putin's talking points | | - Seems to be quite the vindictive narcissist, who | doesn't really care about people or the environment quite | frankly (e.g. trying to cancel a high speed rail project | | Someone with that kind of power and ideology is not good | for democracy - esp now that we have more people in the | GOP that are actively trying to limit people's freedom. | fleddr wrote: | What exactly is the added humanity that you see? | | "I take responsibility"? | | Which means...nothing? For the rest the layoffs are near | identical. You hear that you're no longer needed, access is | revoked, and severance in both cases is relatively generous. | Bilal_io wrote: | I agree. He doesn't win me over because of this, but he | deserves credit. I think many executives need to learn this | from him. | | Regarding Zuck being a robot. I don't think he's less human | or less humane than regular people, but him and most (if not | all) rich people are ditatched from reality, and have lost | touch (if they ever had any) with the understanding of | struggle and what people have to go though in their day to | day lives. And the sad thing is they surround themselves with | individuals that sheild them from criticism, and most likely | even praise their mistakes and shortcomings. | | I remember reading about a Muslim king or Sultan that had | hired a guy to stand by his side and whenever a guest praises | him, he would remind him of God, that he's nothing but a | human, that he will be judged just like everyone else, and | that he's not superior in anyway... Etc. | Andrew_nenakhov wrote: | You treat recently conquered people differently from the | people you have governed for many years. | andrewinardeer wrote: | You really think he penned this? This is a PR release made by | a team of people that he put his name to. | missedthecue wrote: | I don't think it's a ridiculous idea that he penned it. | Zuck is known for being very hands on at Facebook/Meta. No | doubt a PR team and legal council etc... Looked it over | before release but I have no problem believing Mark wrote | this. | universenz wrote: | While he may not of penned it himself, he is certainly | funding 50% of the rather generous severance and that | should count for something by comparison. | nowherebeen wrote: | If you are thinking this is him and not the corporate | strategy team, then you are a mistaken. | darkwater wrote: | The corporate strategy team leads the implementation, but | the final go/nogo is on the CEO for sure. Or at least, | that I would expect. | nowherebeen wrote: | The CEO is told they need to layoff by the CFO. The CEO | agrees, then the corporate strategy team devise a | strategy with the PR team. After the strategy is devised, | the severance and headcount numbers are sent to the CFO | for approval. The CFO should be the final go/nogo. Off | course, the CEO can come in and change his mind, but that | wouldn't be wise since the CFO has the best understanding | of the economic situation and company's financial health. | TulliusCicero wrote: | I'm sure it was looked over, but yeah I'd say there's | greater than 50/50 odds he wrote it himself. | bigbacaloa wrote: | There's nothing impressive or inspiring about this message. You | have twelve hours to send emails ... | usrusr wrote: | It would be truly horrible if someone in the "life's | achievement" position of Zuckerberg would layoff with | communication similar to what as a hostile takeover daredevil | would do, and it would be truly pretentious if a hostile | takeover daredevil like Musk would layoff with communication | mimicking that of a "life's achievement" builder. Both are | avoiding the worst options. | zffr wrote: | > I view layoffs as a last resort, so we decided to rein in other | sources of cost before letting teammates go. | | So spending a few billion less on the metaverse was not an | option? | system2 wrote: | Not a fan of Zucc but he is trying something. What else would | you do to Facebook to save it from TikTok's takeover? | zombiwoof wrote: | meta hiring bar was ridiculous compared to the quality of their | code. i passed the bullshit interview, standards was higher than | Google, and then joined and saw some of the worst code/designs | i've ever seen. at least Google code quality was fantastic. | | fuck mark and his 1000 acres he stole on Kauai. karma is a bitch. | agumonkey wrote: | They should join fresh ex-twitter employees and incorporate. | AnonC wrote: | Seriously, what exactly does "I take responsibility for this" | mean? Is Mark Zuckerberg going to resign as CEO or step down from | the board or go with no pay for a year or two (including | bonuses)? He says he's accountable, but how exactly does this | move hit him hard (except for a punch to his ego)? | | If there are no consequences of significance for him, what's the | meaning of those words? What do the people who aren't laid off to | trust anymore? | alasdair_ wrote: | It's amazing how similar this whole thing is to Stripe's layoff | letter, down to the exact ordering of severance, PTO, RSU, career | services, immigration details and the thing about everyone losing | access immediately due to sensitive information but also keeping | email access for 24 hours and the bit about recruiting being most | affected. It's almost a verbatim copy. | jaywalk wrote: | I was thinking the exact same thing. It's quite striking. | 4gotunameagain wrote: | Considering the greatly inflated tech wages in top companies, | aren't those layoffs alone likely to impact the US economy? | maccard wrote: | FTA: | | > While we're making reductions in every organization across | both Family of Apps and Reality Labs, some teams will be | affected more than others. Recruiting will be | disproportionately affected since we're planning to hire fewer | people next year. We're also restructuring our business teams | more substantially. | | It's not all engineers let go. | dopamean wrote: | Are engineers the only people in tech with high salaries? | PubliusMI wrote: | curiousllama wrote: | Volume scale is too different. US workers might churn at | .5%/month - that's maybe 500k job losses. Even if Facebook pays | 10x average, that'd be equivalent $ to ~3 days of normal churn. | habinero wrote: | No. The US GDP is 23 trillion USD. | [deleted] | bell-cot wrote: | Yes. Hopefully starting with housing prices & rents in certain | areas. | | Though the US is ~3.3e8 people. Don't expect layoffs of ~1.1e4 | to have a substantial national effect. | | [Edit - 's/1e3/1e4/' correction.] | aetherson wrote: | 11,000 people is around 0.003% of the US population. These | layoffs alone will not meaningfully impact the US economy. Of | course, these layoffs are not in isolation, and the economy is | obviously cooling. But, alone, no, it is not a mechanically | meaningful factor. | em500 wrote: | FB alone certainly not. Even if these 11k people would be | earning on average 300k/year, their combined income would be | only around 3B/year. The US national income is around | 25.000B/year. | usrusr wrote: | The good news is that there will be so much bigger profits to | trickle down. (sorry for posting sarcasm on hn) | mupuff1234 wrote: | Might affect the housing prices in CA, which in turn might | affect housing prices in other states as there will probably be | a domino affect. | | (Assuming there's a few thousand laid off in CA) | TheOtherHobbes wrote: | Corporations are like schools of fishes. They all swim in one | direction until suddenly they swim in a different direction. | | So rationally - no. Practically, in terms of social signalling | - very probably. | | Many c-suites will use this as an excuse to offer lower | salaries. Even though the numbers are tiny in absolute terms, | there will be chilling effect across tech in general, | especially in the usual hot-spots - Bay Area, Seattle, maybe | London, etc. | | I'm not sure I'd expect a Tech Recession yet, but there are | omens of a much wider recession which may well include tech. | pm90 wrote: | My opinion here is that tech companies are generally a lot | more data driven and quicker to move. So I see these layoffs | as them taking the possibility of a recession seriously and | being well prepared for it when it does happen. | | This kind of graceful termination is preferable to sudden, | forced changes caused by external events, such as a stock | market crash or a company going under (e.g. Lehman going | under in 2008). | obert wrote: | The fact that the company is still investing in the development | of the metaverse, while letting go of thousands of employees, may | not sit well with some... this could be just "I was wrong, part | 1" | stillametamate wrote: | firstSpeaker wrote: | I am wondering when will Amazon start the layoff process or that | their practices are more economical and that they wont go this | direction. | derwiki wrote: | Don't they have high natural attrition? | lrvick wrote: | While I am no fan of Amazon, they at least produce useful | services and users pay money for them. | | I would be surprised to see layoffs there. | nfRfqX5n wrote: | With the holidays and re:invent coming, it would be pretty | insane for them to cut jobs right now | maerF0x0 wrote: | > > I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that. | | He's not taking responsibility. | | Taking responsibility would look like him saying "And I'm going | to personally give 1% of my shares to those who are leaving | spread equally". Responsibility means being willing to sacrifice | something personal to make it right (or less wrong). | | Zuck owns 13.6% of 2.687B shares, at a $104 a piece that 1% share | would be about $30k per exiting employee. And basically no skin | off his back. | | That's true responsibility and ownership. | ergocoder wrote: | Isn't it included in the severance packages? | | Just curious. Or you want the severance package to be 30k more? | maerF0x0 wrote: | Severance is a distributed load that all shareholders + | employees bear. Taking personal responsibility means personal | action to resolve. Not making a decision to use the resources | of others for one's own guilt. (at least this is my own | ethical framework) | nell wrote: | He was worth $130B. Now, $34B. Hasn't sold any significant | piece of it while he knew there are risks with changing the | direction of the company. That should count for something. | cortesoft wrote: | Isn't the plummeting stock price him taking responsibility and | ownership? He has lost way more from that than 1% of his stock | ownership. | oldstrangers wrote: | Anyone have a quick estimate as to the number of layoffs across | the tech sector in the last 3 months? Absolutely wild. | Sirened wrote: | https://layoffs.fyi puts it at ~40k | saos wrote: | Ohh that's a lot. | | How can I view timeline of my companies headcount growth? Does | LinkedIn have this info? | | Edit: LinkedIn premium is required for this info | krembanan wrote: | Does anyone know how many of these are in engineering? | nicolashahn wrote: | Some data from the inside: | | Reality Labs (AR/VR) hit less hard than the rest of the company. | No one on my team or adjacent teams let go. | | Most bootcampers (unallocated new hires) are gone, even ones that | were performing well. | | Low performer from my past team outside RL was let go, so it | appears performance was a factor for a lot of roles, rather than | just axing entire teams based on business need. | | edit: updated to clear up some confusion about the meaning of RL | and bootcampers | ml_basics wrote: | > Most bootcampers are gone, even ones that were performing | well. | | What are bootcampers, does this just mean recent hires? Or | people who came in with no specialist skills who rotate until | they find a team? | nicolashahn wrote: | Recent hires who haven't yet been allocated to a team, though | they do work with teams on real tasks and produce code. | Usually non-specialists, though some like ML engineers do go | through bootcamp. | [deleted] | jonasdegendt wrote: | People without any formal higher education, but only coding | bootcamp experience. | loeg wrote: | Not in this context. | xdavidliu wrote: | to be fair, the non-facebook definition is way more | commonly used in tech. | azemetre wrote: | Facebook has a program where a majority of new hires go | through to learn about their tech stack and contribute to a | variety of teams. It's also where you find a team to join. | | Basically a high powered onboarding program that is really | good. | blamazon wrote: | (RL == Reinforcement Learning) | | Edit: I was wrong but this is why acronyms without explanation | are annoying. | rwiggum wrote: | incorrect. RL = reality labs. the VR and metaverse stuff. | magicseth wrote: | Reality Labs? | nicolashahn wrote: | Nope, other comments are correct, Reality Labs, aka AR/VR and | other hardware | rcdexta wrote: | I think he is talking about Reality Labs division | blsapologist42 wrote: | Not true that "most" bootcampers are gone. Please don't spread | misinformation. | nicolashahn wrote: | I don't have hard data (do you?) but all bootcampers we were | working with were laid off and threads on Blind seem to | indicate bootcamper layoffs were heavy | maccard wrote: | > I've decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and | let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go | | _How_ does Meta have 85,000 employees? That's an _incredible_ | size of an organisation. | fumblebee wrote: | If you think 85,000 if a lot (it is), Amazon employs a whopping | 1.6m. | | > In 2021, the American multinational e-commerce company, | headquartered in Seattle, Washington, employed 1,608,000 full- | and part-time employees.[1] | | [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/234488/number-of- | amazon-... | scarface74 wrote: | Really? Amazon also has fulfillment centers, drivers, | customer service representative and plenty of other "non blue | badge" employees as does Apple (retail and customer support). | The comparison is nowhere near being valid. | bombcar wrote: | Yeah Walmart employs more people than some major militaries | but nobody blinks an eye because you can see what those | people are doing. | fumblebee wrote: | It's clearly not an apples for apples comparison. Op said | "for an organisation", not for a company without fulfilment | centers, drivers, etc. | JCharante wrote: | What they really meant was for an online-only app | steve1977 wrote: | Amazon handles physical products, that's a completely | different game | whitepaint wrote: | They literally serve billions of people. | bombcar wrote: | So does McDonalds and they only have 200k. | mrweasel wrote: | McDonalds is a franchise business. Very little of the staff | works directly for McDonalds.... or are they included in | the 200.000? | ggregoire wrote: | McDonalds doesn't serve billions of customers. Not even | close. | | https://www.zippia.com/answers/how-many-customers-does- | mcdon... | poulpy123 wrote: | It's huge but meta is one of the 50 biggest companies in the | world so having so many people isn't very surprising. | sytelus wrote: | Meta tripled its headcount in past 4 years. The functionality | and features haven't been tripled in past 4 years by any | accounts. So, there is obvious internal empire building that | was in full swing. Zuck had magically contained these | tendencies and insisted on keeping team small but I think he | gave up about 4 years ago. | steve1977 wrote: | And what are they doing all day long? | vegai_ wrote: | Yeah, I was just thinking few days ago how absurdly large | Twitter's workforce seemed to be. | habinero wrote: | People fixate on what looks like a simple frontend and don't | see all the tech behind it, plus the even larger support | structure behind it: sales, analytics, moderation, etc etc. | FartyMcFarter wrote: | Obligatory link: https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/ | blagie wrote: | I disagree with this link. | | Give me 10 motivated, aligned high-quality people, 5 years, | and all of us room to focus, and I'll build you a better | Google, almost guaranteed. Including Arabic, a11y, spam | filtering, and all the other messy stuff. | | You know the problem with that statement? No one will give | me 10 motivated people, 5 years, and room to focus. | | First, any ten people you find will care about having fun, | making money, preparing for their next career step. Beyond | a pizza box team, finding people motivated by a common good | is impossible. | | Second, if you give me room to focus, you won't know that | I'm not playing video games all day. You don't want that. | You'll want to monitor what I'm doing. My ability to keep | collecting my paycheck will be based on keeping you happy | (perhaps with false reports of progress, if you don't set | things up right). | | And so on. | | Once you factor in the human constraints, I have no idea | how to beat Google. If I did, I'd have a second unicorn on | my belt. | | I'll mention: I've had that magical scenario -- money and | room to focus -- exactly once in my career. I did built a | unicorn in a few months. Once those dynamics kicked in, | there was near-zero further progress, but the organization | eventually sold for around $1B (and that was after losing a | lot of further value). That was based on me having a few | months with a 100% carve-out to focus completely, as well | as to spend money as I saw fit. | | As organizations get bigger, these problems get harder. | Right now, in a typical day, in my current job, I can code | for at most 3 hours. Just as often, this is zero hours. I | couldn't build the same unicorn with that level of split | focus in any amount of time. I'm amazed at the difference | in how much I get done. | | The technical problems to beating Google aren't impossible | to solve, but the hard problems aren't technical. | Dave3of5 wrote: | Yep seen the same thing. In terms of 10 people I'd go | further give me 1-2 fantastic "unicorn" devs and enough | time, I could build you just about anything. | | It just so happens no one in any org gets that time and | keeping those unicorn devs focused is very hard. Very | small annoyances can cause them to leave and that's what | they do. | | I have seen people single handily build amazing stuff but | it never lasts. Eventually someone gets left with the | half built system and then a team needs to take over and | bloat and ... | ctvo wrote: | > Give me 10 motivated, aligned high-quality people, 5 | years, and all of us room to focus, and I'll build you a | better Google, almost guaranteed. Including Arabic, a11y, | spam filtering, and all the other messy stuff. | | This is 60 million USD paying those 10 handsomely to keep | them happy. | | Having built your unicorn that sold for a billion+ you'd | think funding would be straight forward for you. You | don't know a single VC? Self-funding isn't an option? | blagie wrote: | 1) Raising funding is easy for me. | | 2) Self-funding is hard for me, because I didn't take | into account human, political, and organizational issues. | I proposed and built an awesome technology, but that | doesn't mean I was compensated for it. | | A few fallacies: | | - Keeping people happy isn't the same as keeping people | aligned and productive. | | - Keeping funders happy means I can't give technical work | 100% focus. | | - Keeping funders happy also constrains technical work; | for example, showing progress is often in friction with | not taking on technical debt. | | ... and many more. | ctvo wrote: | I see. | | If only you could be left alone to unleash your | brilliance with your friends, you could make a trillion | dollar company. Unfortunately it looks like no one | believes you / believes in you enough to help you with | this. | blagie wrote: | While your comment is sarcastic, it is correct. It's also | not specific to me -- there are trainloads of people who | could build trillion-dollar companies if magically freed | from human issues, such as trust. | | When I was young, I thought technical problems were hard, | and made comments just like yours when more experienced | people told me technical problems were easy and human | problems were hard. I ignored them too. | | Unfortunately, there isn't any magic. We all compete on | equal ground, having to solve both technical and human | issues. | ctvo wrote: | I think you're misunderstanding my point here so I'll be | clear: | | I think you and those truckloads of people you're | referencing may be overestimating your technical prowess. | If you were truly capable of the feats you claimed, | someone would find an operator and CEO to handle all the | messy parts for you and wait for their 10000x returns in | 5 years. | | > It's also not specific to me -- there are trainloads of | people who could build trillion-dollar companies if | magically freed from human issues, such as trust. | | ... ah yes, if only they trust everyone who claimed this | and gave them the money. Truckloads of trillion dollar | companies. | | Edit: | | > When I was young, I thought technical problems were | hard, and made comments just like yours when more | experienced people told me technical problems were easy | and human problems were hard. I ignored them too. | | There are _hard_ technical problems. Autonomous self- | driving cars, for example. Waymo would love to hire you | to deliver this in 5 years with a handful of friends. | | VR headsets that are lightweight, wireless, and can drive | high fidelity experiences is another example. Meta would | love to get in touch. | | Drones that can safely deliver packages at scale while | following US regulations is interesting. Amazon would | love to hire you or buy your startup. | | I don't discount how hard operating is. I know though the | long leash you have if you're truly exceptional. | blagie wrote: | I understand your point. As I said, I would have made the | same point when I was half my age. I understand it all | too well. Younger me would not have believed older me | either. | | I'm not overestimating my own prowess. I've done it | before, moved into management, executive, and now back | into primarily technical / tech leadership. I've had | multiple perspectives on this. I've also had plenty of | technically exceptional employees who could, in abstract, | do the technical part of this as well. | | What you're clear underestimating is the organizational | and human part of this. You can't just hire a CEO, and | hope they'll magically solve it for you, anymore than you | can't just hire a random engineering grad and hope | they'll build you a self-driving car. And as I said, | simply handing someone money, no matter how good they are | and how much money you hand them will rarely result in | any important technical problems solved without the right | organizational structures. | | And while there are some technically hard problems, like | self-driving cars, that's not the majority of unicorns. | I've also worked at a company that solved a problem of | similar complexity as several of the ones you listed | (with about 20 employees, and about a decade of funding). | That one had *both* hard technical and human problems. | Without solving the human problems, it wouldn't have had | the right 20 employees, nor the decade of sustained | funding. And those employees would not have solved the | right set of hard problems to make an economically-viable | entity. | | You're completely missing where the hard parts of making | a successful organization lie, or why they're hard. | hnfong wrote: | I think you're saying "if somebody gives me <something | that is essentially non-existent>, I can do something | really cool." | | There's a lot of wriggle room with the goalposts here, as | they say it's basically impossible to falsify your | statement, since you can shift the burden on the | proclaimed "hard" bits (i.e. "human problems"). I'll just | re-iterate the point made by others that what people | _normally mean_ by "10 motivated, aligned high-quality | people" is probably not what you purported to mean. | Normally "10 motivated, aligned high-quality people" | exists. You claim it doesn't even exist in practice. | | The rest of the discussion is just people talking past | each other. | SideQuark wrote: | >Give me 10 motivated, aligned high-quality people, 5 | years, and all of us room to focus, and I'll build you a | better Google, almost guaranteed. | | Is this unique to you, or can others do the same with the | same 10 people? | | If not unique to you, how come 7 billion people on the | planet have not been able to do this over the past 25 | years? Certainly this many people of that caliber get | together often enough to do this, right? | | If unique to you, then you really need to just find one | person in that 7 billion to fund you so we can see | another trillion dollar company get built in 5 years by | 10 people. | | Or, third option, this isn't reality, and you're missing | some understanding of the issues involved. | weatherlite wrote: | > Give me 10 motivated, aligned high-quality people, 5 | years, and all of us room to focus, and I'll build you a | better Google, almost guaranteed | | Rrrriiight...sure you will...they've only thrown the best | talent money can buy at the problem for 2 decades should | be easy to beat... | blagie wrote: | Been there, done that. It turns out throwing money at | problems doesn't generally solve them. People will be | motivated to keep getting paid obscene salaries. Keep | their boss happy isn't the same as being aligned and | focused on a common vision. | | Indeed, in most cases, when people are aligned around a | common vision, you don't need to pay them very much. | People seem to do best when they're paid enough in order | to not have financial stress so they can focus on work | (with the caveat that the pay ought to be stable), but | where the financial motivation doesn't replace intrinsic | motivation. That's a rare scenario you only see in a few | settings (e.g. sixties-era academia). | | If throwing money at people worked to keep them aligned, | FAANG would have hyper-aligned work forces. You can look | at any of them. | | Saying that Google has "thrown the best talent money can | buy at the problem for 2 decades" visualizes this very | nicely. Throwing people at problems and having people | solve problems working together productively are two very | different things. If I (or anyone else) could solve the | latter problem -- making large numbers of people work | together, aligned, and productively, I'd be richer than | any tech mogul. | | Throwing people at problems results in a lot of very fun | play, though! | occamrazor wrote: | Ad sales and content moderation don't scale as well as | engineering, I suppose. | Havoc wrote: | Pretty sure content moderation is excluded due to outsourcing | atemerev wrote: | The moderators and reviewers alone probably make the bulk of | it. | tyingq wrote: | I suspect those are not employees and not counted in this at | all. | tiagod wrote: | A lot of content reviewing, if not all, is outsourced to | consultancy companies as far as I know. I used to work next | to a building full of content reviewers in such an | arrangement. | tigeroil wrote: | disgruntledphd2 wrote: | Hilariously enough, most of the front-line moderators are | outsourced, so it's even worse than you think. | pavlov wrote: | When I joined FB in August 2018, the company had about 30k | employees. It felt large but individual teams didn't seem to | have a lot of excess fat. The hiring growth in recent years has | certainly been massive. | | Content moderators are mostly external contractors (AFAIK this | is still true), so presumably not included in this number. | blagie wrote: | My experience -- having been near the top of organizations with | standard politics -- is that one of the goals of every | executive is to maximize headcount. For example, if I am | managing 100 people, I am far better off than if I am managing | 10 people, doing the exact same thing. I will be able to step | into better, higher-paying roles if I have experience managing | large headcount. My salary will be higher, and I'll have more | status in my current organization too. | | Most problems are better-solved by small teams, but that's | usually not how incentives align. | | Above some level in the corporate ladder, executives understand | these games and play them completely cynically. It's easy to | become a manager without this. You don't get to be in the | C-suite at 10,000 person firm without playing these games near- | optimally. | | Note that this is not the only part of the corporate ladder | game. Other parts may keep this (somewhat) in check, so you | usually don't have completely pointless 5,000 person divisions | your local supermarket branch. | | They do less well for keeping this in check at monopoly-profit | firms like Meta. In monopoly-driven firms, it's really easy to | start politically-popular pointless units (I suspect, in this | case, a skunkswork, forward-thinking division engaged in | something with no real corporate value, so long as it aligns | well with a buzzwordy-topic like AI/DEI/VR/etc.). | maccard wrote: | Yeah this is what I would expect is the correct answer - it | looks good to have a big reporting structure under you. | riku_iki wrote: | > is that one of the goals of every executive is to maximize | headcount | | should/do they consider other metrics: revenue, active users, | etc under management? | blagie wrote: | Kinda. Here's the problem. Let's say I'm managing a | business with $1B in revenues and $1.1B in expenses. Am I | doing well? | | On one hand, those are astronomically high revenues. Great! | On the other hand, I'm losing $100M per year. Suck! But I | was brought in to fix things up after some idiot who ran | things into the ground. I'm doing great! But it's a growth | market; maybe it's because of that? Suck! But in fact, I'm | bleeding money for growth. Great! | | ... and so on. | | So all those other things can be spun. It's nearly | impossible to objectively evaluate executive performance. | | They definitely show up on OKRs and similar, which can be | managed by setting low objectives. | riku_iki wrote: | Yes, but revenue will be better proxy than head-count. | Once you are not satisfied by revenue, you can start | calculating operational profit next. | Dave3of5 wrote: | Yeah this tracks with what I've seen too. | | As a note people with 100+ direct reports are not really | managing them. Often it'll be indirect as in there are 100+ | people in a hierarchy below you. You might only mange 10 | people but they manage 10 people and so on. | | In terms of reporting your "team" is all 100 people even | though you may have never interacted with half of them other | than an introduction. | blagie wrote: | "Managing" wasn't meant to imply "direct reports." I don't | think I've ever met anyone with 100 direct reports | (although I can see completely routine roles where that | might happen -- Uber/Turk/etc. can exist with zero human | management). | Dave3of5 wrote: | Yes that's what my comment was. Often it's 100 people | below them. The % of time managing any of these people is | low. | | FYI twitter seems to be moving to a low manager high | employee count. Musk himself said that a ratio of 1 | manager per 10 coders is way too high. I suspect he wants | it at 10x that amounts. | | My current manager has 31 direct reports. | | Sorry if this is confusing it's a hard subject to | describe over text and I think there is a lot of nuisance | lost over text here. | curiousllama wrote: | They do a lot! | | Most employees aren't technical. Lots of HR, Accountants, | sales, recruiters, etc. | | Maybe 1/2 of people are in tech-ish roles, across 5 major orgs, | that's maybe 8k per major org. | | Maybe half of those are coding (not management, PMs, etc). Half | of those are non-support/infra. Maybe half of those are doing | development work just to deal with tech debt. | | Take FB itself, that's maybe 10 major products - so something | like "News Feed" might have 100 eng headcount (10-20 teams) | doing anything at all new on that product. | | That feels like a reasonable number to me, but idk. | revskill wrote: | HR is annoying in most of cases. Their job should be (and could | be) automated via bots. | | My thought is, the reason is most of them lack of logical | thinking skills, that's why they're HR in first place ? | esalman wrote: | Do bots have better thinking skills than humans? | glassjawjon wrote: | Is anyone else thinking this is very similar to Stripe CEO layoff | letter(1)? Sure all lay-off letters have some similarity but I'm | pretty sure any automated plagiarism detection system would flag | this. | | 1: https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons- | email... | Ozzie_osman wrote: | Meanwhile, the stock is up 8% today. Because maybe this shows | Mark isn't as crazy as investors thought. | wollsmoth wrote: | Well he apparently kept all the ones working on second life VR. | It's a gamble. | fredgrott wrote: | I have a question... | | If we assume that during the last 20 to 30 years that there has | been no gain in actual real production efficiency increases(real | reason for inequality is non-investments in actual production | efficiencies by VCs and hedge funds); where is the call to re- | align in VCs and hedge funds to investing in production | efficiencies directly (I say directly as investing in climate | green energy is an indirect production efficiency play)? | [deleted] | Exuma wrote: | Sweet baby rays | lrvick wrote: | While I truly feel the best outcome for humanity is Facebook/Meta | shutting down, I will give due credit to the PR and HR teams for | managing to make Zuck look human in this moment. | troyvit wrote: | When somebody in Zuckerberg's type of role says, "I take | responsibility for that," how exactly do they see that | responsibility play out? | | Unrelated but that's some nice severance. | nokeya wrote: | So, after Twitter and Meta layoffs there will be around 15,000 | people looking for the job. In one moment. With other layoffs it | can be counted over 20,000 people IMHO. Will this over flood the | market and bring expectations and salaries down? | passion__desire wrote: | A link if you need to keep track of. https://layoffs.fyi/ | three_seagrass wrote: | This is a pretty slick use of AirTable, ngl. | romanovcode wrote: | I doubt that even 5% are software developers. | alexfoo wrote: | https://layoffs.fyi/ | AHOHA wrote: | It tracks the layoff, any tracker on who got hired after? | Bluecobra wrote: | Ha, this is brilliant! | robertlagrant wrote: | Depends on the balance of what sort of roles are laid off. | automatic6131 wrote: | >Will this over flood the market and bring expectations and | salaries down? | | Well I predict two things: | | One, the days of $200-500k TC being common and widespread are | going to end. If you're in this bracket, or about to break into | it, yeah be worried, it's probably going to evaporate. | | Two, the CV value of Meta, Snap, Stripe, etc. is also going to | end. I don't think they will command the same premium in the | jobs market from now(ish) onward. | spacemadness wrote: | Non-developers in the Bay Area dream of this happening. | gretch wrote: | Why? The top end comp creates a competitive pressure where | the middle and low end benefit and get skewed upward | | If bay-area comp drops, what do you think will happen to | developer comp in the midwest? (refer to programmer | compensation before 90s+ SV was a thing) | spacemadness wrote: | I don't think you understand what group I'm referring to. | I'm referring to people not in tech. | volkk wrote: | i would imagine other industries are going to suffer as | well. my partner worked in fashion for a decade and | realized it was horrendous and nothing was changing so | she went to a bootcamp for UX design and got a job not | too long ago. the pressure of the success of another | industry would force bad industries to change certain | ways of working for the better. when there is 0 | competition, there is nothing stopping outdated and | overworked industries from becoming any better. like it | or not, the tech industry has helped elevate the broader | market to a certain degree | Vibgyor5 wrote: | I think the folks who rode the ride a couple years back got | it good: somewhere around 2012-2019 was great time for | someone who had worked at marquee tech companies, had massive | stock options, and commanded premium on the job market when | they moved on from their orgs. | draw_down wrote: | ripper1138 wrote: | It was obvious that those days were going to end eventually, | it was never going to be sustainable. A few people I knew | were deciding between job offers at beginning of this year | and I straight up said take the most comp, this shit isn't | gonna last forever... | type-r wrote: | on the face, it should be pretty easily sustainable based | on the profit per employee these companies make. i guess we | just really hate anyone but shareholders actually getting a | piece of the pie. | trgn wrote: | The total revenue of some of these companies is | absolutely just mindblowing, normalized by number of | employees even more so. | shagie wrote: | https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=AAPL+GOOG+META | | Apple | Google | Meta market | cap | $2.245 trillion | $1.163 trillion | $261.8 | billion revenue | $387.5 billion | | $278.1 billion | $117.9 billion employees | | 154000 | 174014 | 71970 | revenue / employee | $2.517 million | $1.598 million | | $1.639 million | steviesands wrote: | I checked a few days ago and the revenue per employee at | big tech is eerily similar to "Biglaw" and non retail | banking (Jones day, >200k entry level, goldman is | similar) at 1-2mil per employee. One could argue the | market for IB/trading has been saturated by applicants | for years but they pay is still well above norms ~>150k | entry level. Pretty interesting. | ar_lan wrote: | I just can't really believe this at all, unless these | companies entirely crumble. It's just not feasible for the | majority of folks to live comfortably in the Bay Area with a | family at less than $200k TC. | | I make ~$300k/yr and could probably swing $200k/yr _if I didn | 't save anything_ (I save ~$100k/yr currently). I just can't | imagine it being reasonable with housing + other costs. | | 1. Housing costs are elevated here more than anywhere else in | the world. 2. Cost of goods is drastically higher here than | other parts. The (roughly) same amount of groceries from a | local Sprouts _here_ (we spend ~$100 /wk), is almost always | $30 less everytime we go back home for some durations of time | to be with family. 3. Cost of services like daycare or | anything else necesary to let the work happen take note and | charge enormously. | | As it stands, between housing + utilities, our spend is about | $8000/mo (factoring in the odd things as well like car | repairs over time). To accomodate that, I'd need $100k/yr | after-tax, and that assumes that nothing drastic ever | happens, and factors in no savings at all. | | We could downsize and save $10k/yr, but that's not really | making a substantial dent long-term. | | $200k realistically feels like a minimum to keep any kind of | young families in the area. I could definitely do with less | salary if I could move, but companies are very wishy-washy | about remote work. | | Until that is solved, or the Bay Area calms down, these | salaries aren't going anywhere. But if remote work is | embraced even more, than returning to say $150k is completely | reasonable. | hnfong wrote: | The housing costs in the Bay Area are primarily caused by | 300k salaries from companies in the area. It's not going to | crumble immediately, but I can imagine that if the (to- | be-)recession drags on, there's be a downward pressure on | both salary and housing prices (and other costs of living). | Nobody is going to cut your pay in half, but those 8k/month | rents are just a function of the demand (of housing) and | supply (of money) in the area, not really a law of nature.. | alfalfasprout wrote: | Not really. If anything junior engineers are not going to see | comp like this going forward. But it's still incredibly hard | to hire more senior folks even with big comp packages and | they do command a premium. | | Expect the median to go down, doubtful the top 25% will | change much. | 015a wrote: | Its also worth noting: Its easy to get scared by a number | like "11,000", but just pulling estimates out of my ass; | engineering likely represented less than 20%, and the bias | toward those let go in engineering is likely junior. Not | asserting no one senior was let go; just proportionality. | | Here's what I'd add: Its extremely difficult to hire really | talented senior engineers. Its easy to look at layoffs as | "great, we should be able to find senior talent now"; but | the opposite may actually be true. Layoffs, at least in | otherwise "fine" companies, will predominately not impact | senior engineers, and they'll also be less likely to leave. | Moreover, the industry is effectively building a wall to | breach into seniority; the pathway from junior to senior is | harder and harder, even going back a year or two, and many | of these junior/normal devs were massively compensated at | these roles. | | My heart goes out to the junior devs right now; there | really are two industries and job markets. | rajman187 wrote: | if reports are to be believed, large swaths of these layoffs | were in business and recruiting units, much less so | engineering, so not exactly 15k+ new applications coming in | sytelus wrote: | Per last job report in US, there were two positions for every | person finding _normal_ jobs. For IT, I would think that ratio | is twice. However, the biggest issue that people have to deal | with: (1) Meta paid 2X to 4X higher than regular employers so | that's massive pay cuts for the folks, (2) they lost the | unvested stock aka their hold out compensation of past 4 years | they worked for. | | So, this would be huge financial setback for impacted people | akin to losing half of their wealth and cutting down their | future income as well in half. | matt-attack wrote: | I googled but I see zero references to "hold out" | compensation. Is that actually a term? | pmmertens wrote: | Outside of the 2:1 job postings to job seekers ratio, none of | what you're saying here is correct. | jeffreyrogers wrote: | Meta does pay higher (maybe not 2x higher) and the message | in OP says employees will get their November 2022 vesting, | which implies they won't get any future vested stock. | disgruntledphd2 wrote: | Well no because they no longer work for FB. But they | still have all their vested stock. | barbazoo wrote: | > they lost the unvested stock aka their hold out | compensation of past 4 years they worked for | | Are you assuming a 4 year cliff or why would one lose 4 years | worth of stock? | | Interesting point you're bringing up. Personally I wouldn't | count unvested stock as part of my wealth. | klodolph wrote: | I think the parent comment is talking about your general | 5-year vesting schedule. In other words, for each of the | past 4 years you worked, you will have some unvested stock | today. | whatwherewhy wrote: | In the small central EU country where I live, that wouldn't | even saturate the open programmer positions - just about 1/10 | of it. I'd be very surprised if it saturated the US market in | any measurable way. | | If anything this just means these people will be working on | more different products, and that means more opportunities for | even more programmers in the future. | smcl wrote: | I reckon 11k would pretty well fill all the available tech | roles in Czech Republic (which fits the "small Central | European" description). God knows where they'd live though, | rents + prices would explode | zero_ wrote: | Does the small EU country you are living in pay FAANG level | salaries (200k and more) for their developers? Because in the | small central EU country where I live, they always say | skilled workers are in demand until you tell them your | desired salary ;-) | swalsh wrote: | I don't see it, I used to get a few emails from recruiters | every day. The other day I got 1, and it made me realize it's | been literally weeks since I had one. Lots of companies froze | their hiring. The music is stopping, and there's a lot less | chairs. Not everyone is going to find a new seat. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | True, but these aren't ordinary engineers who'll settle for | ordinary salaries. These are the top paid engineers in the | industry - there are practically no places that can hire all | 20,000 of them at their current salaries. | KingOfCoders wrote: | Did I misread or you live in a small central EU country with | 200.000 open tech positions? | whatwherewhy wrote: | Well to be honest 1/10 was a little bit of overstatement, | but yeah every year there's a governmental report about how | this country is missing 150k programmers so it's about 1/8 | or so. | koliber wrote: | Keep in mind that government reports have a time lag. | It's based on someone doing research some time ago. The | time lag could easily be months. If it was 100% true at | the time of research, the current situation may be very | different. | | Meta was hiring aggressively at the beginning of the | year, as were many other companies. | KingOfCoders wrote: | We have this too in Germany, but it's usually not based | on open positions but some "we would need this to grow | the GDP further industry is saying they miss these number | of people" from some lobbying group like Bitkom. But | Chapeau! for your country. | SteveSmith16384 wrote: | Which translates to: We can't find 150k programmers | willing to work for the salary we are offering. | whatwherewhy wrote: | That salary is still 2x-5x the average. | netheril96 wrote: | > there's a governmental report about how this country is | missing 150k programmers | | You shouldn't take these governmental reports at face | value. In my country, we see a lot of these reports too, | and for all kinds of professions. Most of the time it | just means that the corporate want more people willing to | work for less. | Aeolun wrote: | Well, yes. But if _all_ the corporates only want to hire | people at that price it's still a shortage. It's just a | shortage of shrubs. | whimsicalism wrote: | That's quite explicitly _not_ a shortage in the economic | sense. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | The problem is this statistics contains jobs ads that are | not viable: | | If i put out a job ad: Need a software develioer with | skills in COBOL, latest react and assembly, to lead a | team of 10 for $30k | | And I cant hire anyone | | It will still end up in government statistics for | shortage. | | This is lile if we all put out ads on Gumtree/craiglist | 'will buy a Toyota, brand new, for $1000", and someone | counts thise ad and concludes there is a shortage of | Toyotas. | throwaway2037 wrote: | I saw a lot of this in 2009 and 2010. Hilariously low | offers. CEOs complaining they cannot find enough | employees. | shagie wrote: | The offer may be appropriate for what the value that the | developer is expected to bring to the organization. | | Not all organizations get lots of value from developers. | | It also means they're not _losing_ a lot by not having a | developer, so they 're perfectly ok with having the | position open until someone takes it. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | If they are offering so little money that noone even | applies for a position in a year, then clearly it is not | a real job offer. | | If I want to hire a top proffeshional for minimum wage, | its not a job offer, its just wishfull thinking. | SuoDuanDao wrote: | In that example, you still want a Toyota though, right? | Just because you don't want one all that badly doesn't | mean your life wouldn't be better with one. | RandomBK wrote: | Tough to say. Do I _need_ a Toyota? no, but I 'd happily | buy one for $1K. | | Demand elasticity makes any report on the volume of | demand irrelevant unless it also covers the pricing of | that demand. | mythhouse wrote: | > I'd be very surprised if it saturated the US market in any | measurable way. | | Most of meta enigneers won't be working for 120k midwest | coding job if they can avoid it. So spread will be focused on | similar pay positions vs distributed unifromly. | amusedcyclist wrote: | Going off the article it sounds like most of the layoffs | are in business and recruiting so I suspect a small-ish | fraction of the layoffs will be programmers | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | It does mean that a lot of folks will be looking for work, | expecting really big salaries. Because they have become used | to a very high standard of living, these salaries will | actually be _required_. | | MANGA companies pay ridiculously well. | | I suspect a lot of "Reality sh*t sandwiches" will be in | people's lunchboxes. | ransom1538 wrote: | "these salaries will actually be required." I wonder if | foreclosures spike. Bay area. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | Yup. I suspect a lot of these folks are living in | overpriced rental apartments in SF (and Brooklyn). | tifadg1 wrote: | I'm quite interested in learning which small central EU | country has 150k outstanding programming jobs. | theCrowing wrote: | If you come from FANG and you are good you can basically | walk into a german tech place or even car manufacturers and | get hired on the spot. | Aeolun wrote: | If you want to earn <EUR70k, interviews in the EU seem to | be much, much simpler. | itissid wrote: | I have seen a previous manager at a company cannot | compensate for FANG levels say for interview candidates | "Don't put a high bar, besides we won't get that kind of | talent because... you know... FANG". | | But i don't see that being necessarily true and largely | depends on type of software you build and the culture of | the company. A lot of people are decent engineers and are | not interviewing for FANG for a variety of reasons are | for no reason in companies that may or may not deserve | them. I think its hard to build street cred to get people | to work for less, but interviews should always have a | good bar. | j-krieger wrote: | You can currently do this as well. Turns out FAANG is | popular because german tech pay is pretty garbage. | yrgulation wrote: | Low pay, old tech, stiff management, strict hierarchy. | 4gotunameagain wrote: | German tech pay is fine. The EU does not strive for the | wealth inequality of the US, and tech wages are more than | enough. | Kinrany wrote: | Do tech salaries really affect the overall wealth | inequality? Programmers are both few and still salaried. | ddorian43 wrote: | It's best for the wealth to remain on companies owners. | That's what Germany thinks. | redelvis wrote: | I thought about moving to Berlin and did some research. | Median salary for a Senior Software Engineer is 86k EUR | in Berlin according to Glassdoor. You will pay ~48% in | taxes (depending on your Tax class), so it will be around | 3700 net per month with an avg rent ~1500 EUR. So it's | like 2200 EUR left, and you are supposed to have a life | (and even make some savings) with that money. I don't | know how this is fine to be honest. The only reasonable | way to do it is to have this salary when you live in a | more cheaper place with a better tax regime. | lmarcos wrote: | Nah. With 86K gross/year in Germany you get: around 4K | for tax group 1 (single) and 4.7K for tax group 3 | (married and your partner earns less than you). Also, | average rent in Berlin is among the cheapest (compared to | other big cities like Hamburg, Dusseldorf and Munich). | So, more like 1K/month for a decent apartment. | | This salary calculator is extremely accurate | https://www.brutto-netto- | rechner.info/gehalt/gross_net_calcu... | | In any case, I agree with your overall statement: even if | 86K/year puts you in the top 10% of earners in Germany, | in reality it's hard to afford a decent house (not flat) | with that salary (unless you wanna work until you're | 67...) | lotsofpulp wrote: | Wealth/income inequality is addressed by wealth/income | taxes, or marginal consumption taxes. Controlling prices | (limiting wages) would be a terrible way to go about it. | mensetmanusman wrote: | The damaging wealth inequality is the hundred millionaire | + class and the rest. | | If prosperity distribution had kept track during the last | 50 years (wealth has increased dramatically due to tech), | the average salary would be 6 figures, so it's actually | better for wealth distribution to have tech folks making | higher 6 figures to put pressure on the 8+ figure class. | [deleted] | WanderPanda wrote: | Absolutely not even if you consider it pre-tax. Post-tax | it's just horrible | kensai wrote: | Yes, but you get a social security which is without par. | Including one year Arbeitslosgeld (in most situations), | health insurance, the works. I always find it funny that | we compare these things. In the USA the salaries are | superhigh, but lo and behold if something happens to your | crystal perfect life. And in life shit happens. A | disease, an accident, an unwanted pregnancy. There is so | much that might go off, you can literally drown in debts | before you even know it. | slaw wrote: | In the USA in Meta like companies you have good | healthcare insurance, one year paid maternity leave and a | lot of other benefits. 4 months salary at layoff. And you | make 2 to 3 times more than in Germany. | bialpio wrote: | Agreed, this is actually pretty scary for me (living in | the US for a decade now) - bankruptcy is potentially one | accident away (especially if it takes away the ability to | continue doing the high-paying job). | jdminhbg wrote: | If you have a high-paying job that you're worried about | losing due to some kind of health incident, you should | get disability insurance. | Ericson2314 wrote: | Lol blaming workers for income inequality. | | Use profit margins to determine what wages should be. I | wouldn't be surprised if the wages _are_ fine on that | basis, actually. But let 's draw the right conclusions | for the right reasons. | ryan93 wrote: | Say how much do the executives make at German companies? | mmmmmbop wrote: | At German car manufacturers? Absolutely not. The maximum | compensation that an IC can commend at BMW is just above | 100kEUR -- and that would require more than ten years of | experience. | | Compare that to a new grad at Google Germany making | 130kEUR. Somebody with ten years of experience there | would be making closer to 300kEUR. | esel2k wrote: | But that typically old-school setup where there is only | one way to make more money is move up the career ladder | into management or in German "Fuhrugskarriere". I have no | pity for these types of companies who don't understand | that a senior engineer is worth more than a young group | leader. A few companies have started to change but | Germany has along way to go to adapt from this mindset, | but in reality there would be enough money just another | distribution is necessary. | ch4s3 wrote: | The GINI coefficient for Germany is about 32 vs 41 in the | US with the global average being 38. That's not so far | apart, and the US is skewed by have a chunk of the | world's wealthiest people. | Fripplebubby wrote: | > the US is skewed by have a chunk of the world's | wealthiest people | | It's a little bit funny to say that a metric is skewed by | measuring the thing it is designed to measure... | ch4s3 wrote: | Not really. The US attracts wealthy people from around | the world, has a gigantic internal market, and is | friendly to financial business. If you don't consider the | top 0.1% then the picture looks totally different. The | VAST majority of wealth in the US is help by people in | 50th to 99th percentile range. The Gini coefficient makes | the US look superficially more like Qatar, which is | obviously nonsense. | smcl wrote: | It's hard to take two numbers in isolation that we don't | really use day to day and make any kind of sense of them. | It's only when you graph a few countries together[0] that | you see: | | 1. the US is somewhat of an outlier, while Germany is | grouped together with other wealthy countries | | 2. the US' Gini has been steadily growing last few | decades - implying inequality is getting worse | | 3. Germany's Gini is very slightly declining in the last | few decades - implying it's staying roughly stable | | I don't think higher-than-average is particularly good at | all - you're in the neighbourhood of places like Qatar, | Iran, DRC and Argentina. In fact the _only_ way you 'd | use Gini to suggest the US has a ok level of wealth | inequality is if you presented two countries Gini | coefficients side-by-side to someone who doesn't normally | think about Gini, presented them without any other | context and said "look, they're kinda close" | | [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#/med | ia/File:G... | ch4s3 wrote: | What I'm getting at is that Germany isn't some paragon of | equality, it's average. The US as I pointed out is skewed | by the high number of staggeringly wealthy people and a | trend of people moving from the lower to upper levels of | what you might call middle class. In the US wealth held | by people form 50% of the distribution up to 99% | represents about $91T vs $18.2T for the top 0.1% and | $4.4T for the bottom 50%. The coefficient really hides | the vast middle and upper middle distribution in the US. | | Also this obscures the fact that it is far better to be | poor or working class in the US than somewhere with a | similar Gini coefficient. | smcl wrote: | > The US as I pointed out is skewed by the high number of | staggeringly wealthy people | | I think you might want to lookup what Gini tries to | measure. You used Gini as a way to suggest the USA isn't | so bad, and now you're having to backpedal and say that | actually Gini kinda sucks but the USA isn't so bad. | ch4s3 wrote: | > You used Gini as a way to suggest the USA isn't so bad | | No, I'm pointing out that at lot was being made of a | small difference in a ratio that's really sensitive to | marginal differences. I'm noting a marginal difference | that makes the US look more different than other OCED | nations than it is in fact and more like autocratic | developing nations than it is in fact. | | I'm also pointing out that it isn't a good measure at | all. It's as coarse as GDP and more misleading. | mmmmmbop wrote: | A graph showing _income_ inequality seems impractical | when discussing wealth inequality. | smcl wrote: | Slip of the tongue (fingers?) when I was typing - the | original figures ch4se gave were for income inequality so | I stuck with that. | ch4s3 wrote: | Well income is what gini measures and what the comment I | was replying to[1] was referencing. | | [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33530819 | mmmmmbop wrote: | Sure, that makes sense. It's just worth noting that the | U.S. are not an outlier amongst developed nations when | looking at wealth inequality -- which, IMO, is the much | more important metric. | ch4s3 wrote: | Yes, that's part of my criticism for gini. | idontpost wrote: | bialpio wrote: | Some metrics aren't linear so w/o knowing more about Gini | coefficient, my first thought is "I have no idea if the | difference is significant or not". Can someone ELI5 this | so that I can build an intuition for what "1 unit of | Gini" means? | ch4s3 wrote: | It's a curve reflecting income (not wealth) share of a | population against a line of perfect equality, which is a | 45 degree angle. A low disparity hugs the line and a high | disparity hugs the X and Y axis. Gini = A/(A + B) where A | is area over the curve and B is the area under the curve. | So an increase of 0.1 in the gini number reflects a | larger A. | | It's not a very good way to measure what it is trying to | measure[1]. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#Limita | tions | bialpio wrote: | I think the main problem is the lack of intuition of what | "1 Gini means", except the "lower is better". Is | difference between coefficient of 10 & 11 the same as | difference between 30 and 31? The poster to which I | responded said that "32 vs 41 is not far apart" - is it? | Is difference between 10 and 19 the same as difference | between 32 and 41 (delta is the same)? How about between | 0 and 9? | ElevenLathe wrote: | High tech-sector salaries are the result of extreme | wealth inequality, not the cause of it. The 0.1% are not | Meta engineers hammering a check and fretting about RSUs. | They are the ones investing in every half-baked TechCo | and startup because they already own a few small | countries and a Blackwater detail the size of the 82nd | Airborne, and they can't think of anything else to do | with their money. It's this desperation for anything | approaching positive real returns that has inflated US | tech salaries. | Vibgyor5 wrote: | Strong disagree with that one and this is a fairly | unambitious take. Most companies and employees themselves | in the EU buy their own kool-aid of "yeah we are ok with | getting paid $40k because we got health insurance" (which | does not work as efficiently in practice as one would | like). | | EU - esp. Germany and some other European countries - | have abysmal salary compared to rest of the developed | world and a poor wage growth over the last 10 years or | so. | | Heck, even countries like India have experienced faster | growth: netto, a senior tech professional in India can | earn more than what what they'd get in Germany. And | that's not even accounting for 3-5x difference in cost of | living. | delecti wrote: | Those German car manufacturers are also taking advantage | of ex-FAANG in the US. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | Yes, but your salary will be 1/2 of what you're used to. | | My brother moved from FAANG to Atlanta to work for Home | Depot. His comp went down from 400k to 140k. Which is | still great for Atlanta, but there is no situation where | a move from FAANG to _any_ other company comes without | wage deflation | philjohn wrote: | No, but if it keeps a roof over your head, that's all | that matters in the immediate aftermath. | isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote: | More like 1/5th in central europe. | schnitzelstoat wrote: | Yeah, $140k is like VP money in Europe... | bbu wrote: | Europe is big. That statement is only valid for some | European countries. | flakiness wrote: | and in Japan. | nprateem wrote: | Wow. You want sympathy for people who've been earning | $400k for years and now have to come back to Earth? My | heart bleeds for him. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | I don't think these people need either sympathy or pity. | They will do fine. They're all smart. Most are also hard | workers. People like that don't struggle for long. | CoastalCoder wrote: | > You want sympathy for people who've been earning $400k | for years and now have to come back to Earth? | | I don't notice any request for sympathy in the GP | comment. | arroz wrote: | Oh, so he is fine, I don't see the issue | jollyllama wrote: | Yeah, but that's still in the USA. The poster is talking | about a totally different type of switch. | | As an aside, you're talking about switching from a | company that supposedly makes revenue selling ads but | really is inflated with free money to one that makes | revenue from selling hammers. People who made this switch | _before_ the free money are going to be fine. Now that | 11,000+ people are going to try to make this switch, they | 're going to wish they had. | | The other thing that happens with this is your job | becomes much more practical and less oriented to whatever | fads are sweeping SV and HN. Some like it, some don't. | jupp0r wrote: | High frequency trading pays better than FAANG if you got | the right skills and can cope with the work environment | (which is not as bad as it used to be from what I hear). | whymauri wrote: | >where a move from FAANG to any other company | | Is this ignoring finance, promotions, or (until recent | layoffs) private/public big tech/unicorn-like companies? | | Like, even within FAANG the pay bands are huge for the | same level. | ajuc wrote: | According to EU Commission's estimates whole EU needs ~600 | 000 more programmers, with Poland (where I'm from) needing | 50 000. This seems conservative to me, everybody's hiring | and salaries grow pretty quickly. | | You'd be earning about 50 000 USD per year as a senior | developer, but that's plenty enough to live a very good | life here. Outside IT people earn about 10 000 USD per | year, food and services are very cheap, and there's a | comprehensive welfare state. | ausudhz wrote: | With the fact that you got the demand/offer law not in | your favor, these salaries will definitely go down. | | Impressed to hear that Poland pays well for developers | compared to other jobs. 50k for a senior role would | definitely be a good salary even in other EU countries | PartiallyTyped wrote: | When you take into consideration taxes and social | security; you will be taxed at an effective taxrate of | around 40% for a salary of 40k euro. To get around taxes, | you need to work as a contractor, and use some copyright | law on the time you spend coding (you create something) | which cuts the taxrate for that time in half. | | Low Cost of living is true if you find a cheap enough | place to live, but due to Russia's invasion, housing just | isn't that cheap unless you know where to look for and | are from Poland. I called 20 people just to be able to | check a single apartment out. | | 50k isn't good for a senior role either; new grad salary | in Germany in 2020 was around 60k gross. | ajuc wrote: | > With the fact that you got the demand/offer law not in | your favor, these salaries will definitely go down. | | Doubt it. Everybody in my current team has several offers | to change jobs with 5-15% increase in salary. Some from | the same (American) company for which we work right now | (but they don't know that cause we're hired through 2 | subcontracting companies ;) ). | ausudhz wrote: | What is relevant now is not relevant tomorrow | soared wrote: | Poland has had economic growth comparable to countries | like South Korea, since 1980! | ausudhz wrote: | Nobody denies it. Again is the offer and demand law. | Probably high delocalization brought new jobs which ended | up and saturating the market and growing salaries to | fight for the very same talent pool. | | Something similar happened in Ukraine. I had friends in | Europe that were running companies in there till when the | wages became comparable to the original country. They | still kept the Ukrainian office but eventually reduced | the growth in favour of other locations | ajuc wrote: | Well in early 80s the whole country went on a strike and | there was a martial law for 2 years. Low base effect. | whatwherewhy wrote: | I have colleagues from Prague making around $100k after | taxes. They're contractors, though. | Lionga wrote: | Best thing is 100K in Prague is about the same as making | 300 to 500K after taxes in Bay Area in COL/PPP | adjustments | AdrianB1 wrote: | Not quite; an iPhone costs more in Prague, a Tesla much | more, a laptop can be double the price. You don't | purchase lots of iPhones, but the global goods generally | have higher prices in Europe than EU, partly due to VAT, | partly due to market conditions. Energy and gas are much | more expensive in Prague. | throwaway1777 wrote: | Sounds like system is working then as most engineers at | meta make 300-500k | vasco wrote: | Not exactly, only the "living expenses" part of the | salary can get this "equivalence multiple" applied. The | rest of the salary should be counted 1:1 with the US | because other purchases cost the same regardless of where | you are (branded clothes, travelling, buying a laptop, | buying a car, investing for retirement, stocks cost the | same everywhere). So it's more like the first 20k are | like getting paid 100k and the rest of the 80k will just | be 80k, so more or less 200k equivalent. | | It's very hard purely on cost of living to match a salary | of 500k anywhere in the world, because at some point the | extra items / investments all cost the same regardless of | geography. | Lionga wrote: | But you will probably stay there for life so you have the | benefit for life. "investing for retirement, stocks" are | cheaper as you also need 3 to 5 times less. | | With 100K in Prague you can retire/never needing to work | for money after 3 to 10 years Depending on your habits. | Not sure how many Bay Area employees can do that staying | there. | | I am somewhere close and earn 300K which is about 30 | times of what you need per year. One year of works covers | all my expenses living like a local for the rest of my | life in capital returns even at a modest 3.5% SWR. | | I take that over 500K Job (of which over 30% goes to US | Gov, while i pay max 10%) any time, heck I take it over a | 1000K Job in SF/NY etc. | acchow wrote: | > But you will probably stay there for life so you have | the benefit for life. | | Hard to know this 30 years ahead of time. Maybe after 30 | years in the Bay Area you retire to Hawaii? Or lower COL | like Portland? Or even a town in Japan? You have tons of | choice if you've been saving at 500k. If you've been | saving at Eastern Europe salaries, your options narrow | jupp0r wrote: | There are also benefits in not earning 5x as much as all | your friends. | Firmwarrior wrote: | It's good to look at the whole picture like that. A lot | of "cost of living calculators" tend to implicitly assume | you're spending every take-home dollar on eggs or | gasoline, which isn't true for highly-paid software | engineers. | | I'd propose that you should also calculate how many years | of 300k in the Bay Area it'd take to retire in Prague vs | years making 100k in Prague. | | I ran these numbers a couple years ago, and it was | costing me about ~$8000/month to live in the Bay Area. I | estimated we could live in Tokyo or much of the USA at a | similar quality of life for $4000/month. With $310k/year | (taking home $190k) that meant I was able to save about | $90k a year. In Tokyo, I could only get companies to | offer about $140k at the time, and it was about the same | for remote work in the USA. That meant I could save about | $50k/year. | | You can make a strong argument that saving $50k and | living in one location is better than saving $90k in | another, but it's good to have all the data at hand to | make the best decision for yourself. | ausudhz wrote: | Working as a contractor yes could bring as much but | highly specialized one get 1k Euro a day. You're | basically on the top 1 or less % | Cwizard wrote: | Not really most contractors I know are just regular | programmers, average in skill. Their rate is around | 800eu/day, they all work in big bureaucratic enterprises. | Hiring contractors is basically the only way a lot of | those companies can get access to somewhat decent talent. | | And it is not as expensive as it seems. If you live in a | country with strong social safety nets hiring someone is | crazy expensive. | | The few contractors I know that work normal software jobs | have lower rates, but they still make good money. | whatwherewhy wrote: | These are React guys. What kind of specialization are you | thinking of? | quickthrower2 wrote: | That logic would apply to any job that anyone can study | or train to do. For example a doctor. | chrisBob wrote: | When people talk about EU salaries do they typically mean | pre-tax or post-tax. | EricLeer wrote: | pre-tax most of the time, but of course varies per | country | distances wrote: | Almost always pre-tax, only exception I know is Italy. | They seem to talk post-tax | przefur wrote: | Romania? Poland? | Symbiote wrote: | 5th and 6th largest EU countries. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_memb | er_... | fastball wrote: | Which are smaller than various US States, so I think | categorizing them as small is reasonable. | bialpio wrote: | I would probably not classify Poland as small, especially | noting how big of a population drop between Poland and | Romania is. And if Poland were a US state, it would rank | 2nd in terms of population, sightly over 1 million people | less than California... | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | Romania and Poland aren't exactly small by European | standards, in fact they're some of the biggest by | population and area. And Romania is not Central but | Eastern European [1], so that's out. | | Small and Central European would be Hungary, Slovakia, | Czechia, Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland based on the most | widely used definition of Central Europe [1] | | [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe#/media/Fi | le:Cen... | leto_ii wrote: | These distinctions are pretty arbitrary, maybe just wait | for GP to clarify. | whimsicalism wrote: | They're not going to clarify because there is no country | that matches this description. | someweirdperson wrote: | Small would be Luxembourg. | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | Luxembourg is not Central European. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe | kgwgk wrote: | Have you followed that link? | | Have you seen the second map in the introduction? | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | Have you followed that link? Have you seen the first map? | kgwgk wrote: | The one that says "There are numerous other definitions | and viewpoints."? | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | No the one that quota encyclopedia Britannica. | kgwgk wrote: | I think we are both talking now about the first chart in | the section "Different views of Central Europe". The one | with the caption "Central Europe according to The World | Factbook (2009),[1] Encyclopaedia Britannica, and | Brockhaus Enzyklopadie (1998). There are numerous other | definitions and viewpoints." | yrgulation wrote: | Depends, Romania is either central, southern, or east | european. Culturally is most definitely not eastern. | Germany is by some considered central european. Austria | and Switzerland see themselves as west european. Oh the | delusion. | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | See the map of the most widely used definition of the | region of Central Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ce | ntral_Europe#/media/File:Cen... | | Every country changes their belonging to a region based | on the perceived value bias of what is being discussed. | | A user here humorously put it that Slovenians see | themselves as Western European when it comes to how | honest and hard they work, Southern European when it | comes to weather and food, and Eastern European when it | comes to drinking, partying and having fun. | | But geographical location however is immutable, so let's | stick to that instead of the other more biased | definitions. | yrgulation wrote: | > But geographical location however is immutable, so | let's stick to that instead of the other more biased | definitions. | | Proceeds to using precisely biased, political, | definitions. | AdrianB1 wrote: | Romania is Eastern Europe, not Central. | brink wrote: | It sounds like HN satire. | rco8786 wrote: | Same | rouxz wrote: | Nobody said a word about programming jobs being outstanding | lol | forbiddenlake wrote: | "outstanding" meaning "open", which is what GP referred | to | bombcar wrote: | Obviously it's the Vatican City State. | raverbashing wrote: | Latin is required and the use of BSD systems is forbidden | though. | Iwan-Zotow wrote: | and please, don't install kernel 6.6.6 | neonnoodle wrote: | Monte carlo skills finally going to pay off in Monaco | alvis wrote: | Surely they're not all engineers, many are sales and admin | positions. But the number is still large tho | tobase wrote: | Isn't that forecasted by the same people who now says that | they didn't see this coming? :) | weatherlite wrote: | You're right but its not as if only Meta are firing or we're | anywhere close to this recession ending. There's gonna be a | bunch of pain to come still unfortunately. | throwaway0x7E6 wrote: | most of the people being laid off are not programmers | vaxman wrote: | They used to say "assets have legs in silicon valley" but | not in Horizon World! | vaxman wrote: | Yeah, fly 'em all to a "small central EU country" which shall | henceforth be known as LuxemValley. As a bonus, 'errbody | working in LuxemValley shall be known as the SiliconBourg and | be issued a mug, backpack and Chemin de Fer paddle. :D | | Seriously, under current law, H1B workers will be even more | locked-out of US jobs until these newly RIFed US workers land | somewhere, but India doesn't really depend on H1B contractor | revenue like it did during the mass RIFs of the "Dot Com | Bust." No, now Indian citizens can work comfortably, | efficiently and economically from India, like many of the far | more expensive (and now RIFed) US workers had been doing from | their US homes. For those RIFed US workers to compete with | more economical India-based workers, they're going to need to | either get very small and crawl under the door to struggling | US employers (by lower their salaries while abandoning remote | work) or maybe they'll need to cut expenses by moving to a | "small central EU country" and get paid in Euros. | fy20 wrote: | Similar here. Over the summer my country of 3m people, | reached its yearly immigration quota in tech jobs of 16,000. | And that doesn't include people moving inside the EU or | refugees from Ukraine. | xbmcuser wrote: | I think the pay will go down its the meta and google etc that | have been pushing up the salaries without the demand from | them the pressure on salaries will bring them down. | dagw wrote: | While it might not saturate the US job market as a whole, it | will saturate the parts of the local programmer market that | can come even close to matching the sorts of salaries these | people where probably paid. | | If they're willing to move to anywhere in the US and/or take | a 50+% pay cut then they'll have no problem getting a job. If | they all want to stay where they are and get paid within 20% | of their current salary then lots of people will end up | without a job. | habinero wrote: | Or they'll start their own companies. Not a bad time to do | it. | oska wrote: | Only if you can start a company that's cashflow positive | from essentially day one. Burn rate provided by | suppressed interest rates and cashed up venture | capitalists is quickly becoming a disappearing concept. | acdha wrote: | The first dotcom crash was good that way: people make | worse decisions when they have piles of VC funny money | and anyone with a real business has trouble standing out | when the field is full of competitors burning bright but | fast. | whywhywhywhy wrote: | If they're doing that then it means Meta, Twitter, | Stripe, etc process got rid of the wrong people. | stephencanon wrote: | That's right---any time you're laying off thousands | people at once, some of them will the "the wrong people". | There is no mechanism for mass layoffs that can | accurately target only "low performers". Even if these | layoffs reflect good decisions, good decisions at | corporate scale are not necessarily good decisions at the | individual level. | seydor wrote: | Let's hope so | HgW33WiY6m3W4H9 wrote: | I work at Stripe. I can't throw a proverbial paper clip | at this company without hitting someone who could be | founding a company right now. There's no way to lay off | 14% of Stripe without setting free scores of future | founders. | naijaboiler wrote: | hubris of tech workers. as if starting successful | companies is just that easy | throwaway2037 wrote: | I feel exactly the same. I would love to run my own tiny | company, but it looks very tough to bootstrap. Everytime | I hear someone say it is easy, I cringe. | ransom1538 wrote: | Uber for cats will rise again! | sillysaurusx wrote: | It's helpful to remember that we're collectively doing | about 1% of what we theoretically could be accomplishing. | | If you somehow forced someone to sit and practice drawing | a hand for eight hours a day, they would get surprisingly | far as an artist. | | Being a founder isn't too dissimilar. Determination tends | to be decisive. | | If you spent eight hours a day trying to make a small | group of users love you, you'd get surprisingly far. | | I think that's what they mean about potential founders at | Stripe. There's a lot of potential energy that a layoff | might release. | whimsicalism wrote: | This is the "live laugh love" of the Bay Area. | | > It's helpful to remember that we're collectively doing | about 1% of what we theoretically could be accomplishing. | | Is this supposed to mean anything at all? | andsoitis wrote: | my guess is that most, if not nearly all, successful | founders were pulled into that position (i.e. self- | directed) vs pushed out of desperation. | d6rd7rxuxutx wrote: | I'm not sure about that. | | Starting a company is a risk vs reward calculation. If | they were getting high salaries it wouldn't be | unreasonable to want to minimize your risk by working on | a project on the side while getting a bigger saving bank | until a certain point. If you get fired the calculation | is now whether you want to invest in job search or take | the plunge and start the company | andsoitis wrote: | If you were that risk averse (that you didn't act on your | entrepreneurial instincts) when times were good, my money | is that you're more likely to double down in searching | for safety. | | I don't know that there are any stats on this so in the | end it is juts your and my opposing instincts :-) | mywittyname wrote: | OP isn't saying it's "easy". They are pointing out that | forming a startup is _achievable_ by a small (scores = | several 20s ~= 60-100) number of people impacted. | Sakos wrote: | Imagine thinking that starting a new company is a bad | idea. It might not be easy, but the engine of progress is | the birth of new firms, not the monopolization of markets | through a handful of them. The vast majority of jobs are | provided by small to medium-sized businesses, not | companies like Twitter or Stripe. This is particularly | true in Europe, but it's quite universal. We need new | companies, even if some fail (or even most). | mbreese wrote: | Not necessarily... a potential good startup founder is | not necessarily a skill set that a FB needs right now. | And many business ideas that aren't "FB-scale ideas" can | still be quite successful for a small founding crew. | underdeserver wrote: | Not necessarily. There may be business opportunities that | Meta, Twitter and Stripe are not interested in. | chasd00 wrote: | Isn't this about the worst time to start a company? | Uncertain economic outlook, high inflation, high | borrowing costs. | shagie wrote: | Less competition, more available labor, the books _start_ | with a "this is hard" and get better when things get | better (compare with starting when things are easy and | then having it rough when times get hard)... | scarface74 wrote: | Except for that whole funding environment being dead | thing. Not to mention that nine out of ten startups fail | even in good times. | indymike wrote: | I used a 1yr severance as a seed fund for my current | company. | scarface74 wrote: | That doesn't dispute the fact that only 1 out of 10 | startups "succeed" and that definition of "success" is | overly generous. | indymike wrote: | No, it doesn't dispute that startups are risky, even if | you know what you are doing. By the way, water is wet, | too. | [deleted] | netheril96 wrote: | Fed raising the interest rate is hardly a good time to | start a startup. | slaw wrote: | Only for startups that depends on free money from Fed | like Movie Pass, Juicero. Startups with sound ideas | should be fine. | headsoup wrote: | Wouldn't layoffs starting at larger tech companies imply | demand is waning and there would be a much smaller market | for all of these new startups? | schnitzelstoat wrote: | Yeah, ads revenues are down which means a whole load of | ad-supported business models are no longer economically | viable. | | I don't think a recession with low demand and high | interest rates is a good time to start a company at all. | reaperducer wrote: | _Wouldn 't layoffs starting at larger tech companies | imply demand is waning and there would be a much smaller | market for all of these new startups?_ | | It depends on how you define "startup." They don't | necessarily have to keep staring at screens for their | living. | | It was mass layoffs of real estate and banking workers in | 2008 that kick started the food truck industry. | nradov wrote: | Demand is always growing in some markets. I predict major | growth in the defense and agriculture technology markets | over the next decade. | acdha wrote: | Clean tech also seems big - even if the Republicans did | manage to gut federal support for renewables (I'm | doubtful given e.g. how much money Texas wind farms are | making) consumer trends are looking solid and a lot of | state policies represent locked-in market. | nkozyra wrote: | Demand for what, though? Startups can cover ... well | anything, really? | | There's certainly less demand for Facebook's style of | social media, for sure. | acdha wrote: | This is a valid concern in a recession but there are | different niches and business models. Facebook has been | very profitable selling ads but that's not the only | option, and there are opportunities which might be a good | fit for a small company which a big one is structurally | incapable of finding. After the dotcom crash, I knew | several people who found solid niches selling services to | other businesses - it didn't have the hypergrowth | potential of something like an ad-supported social | network but most of those fail, and there's a lot of | money in less sexy industries. | Archelaos wrote: | It should also be noted that a person recalled from the | home office already has a hidden 20% pay cut if she or he | has to commute for about an hour in each direction. | | EDIT: I mistakenly first wrote "each day" instead of "in | each direction". | brookst wrote: | True, if you assume time is perfectly fungible into | money. For most of us it's not. | Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: | You can also consider this in terms of work. Being forced | into the office increases work by 20% without a | commensurate raise. | brookst wrote: | Sure, but "pay cut" has a specific meaning, and that's | not it. | | When I roll on to a new project and it is more/less work | than my previous one, I don't think of it as a pay | increase or decrease. | acdha wrote: | Definitely true normally but we're in this weird world | where a ton of people got to try a previously unavailable | or unemphasized option. Full-time remote work used to be | a bit unusual but a couple of years was enough for a lot | of people to get used to the idea and now it feels like a | cut to go back, even if they were used to being in the | office in February 2020. | namdnay wrote: | unless you spend a less time in the office than you would | at home | acdha wrote: | No, but commuting has other expenses: beyond the obvious | cost of cars that often includes eating out more (often | at pricier locations), extended childcare, wardrobe | expenses, etc. | | No, a FAANG employee probably isn't suffering (although | consider the pay outside of the prestige jobs) but | everyone just got a multi-year reminder of those indirect | costs. | the_lonely_road wrote: | It does not cost 20% of a FANG salary to commute even if | you are doing in in a Hummer you bought off military | overstock .com. | jupp0r wrote: | On top of that, lots of companies hiring remotely. | namdnay wrote: | i think they're talking about the dilution of your hourly | wage, if you consider the travel time to be work | nobleach wrote: | https://www.overstockgovernment.com/ | Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: | I've been here long enough to have seen the countless | comments lamenting the current state of qualifications and | ability in the industry. Here's to hoping that meta and | stripe laid off under achievers that would be wise to get | into a different industry where they'll perform better. | Musks layoffs ignored since it seems clear that his were | indiscriminate and hasty to the point of negligence. | samstave wrote: | The real problem to worry about is hiring practices, shitty | HR people, algo-based auto rejecting and shitty fucking | interviewers... THIS will have impact on these people | suffering to find a new position.... | | So really what needs to happen is companies need to be | reaching out URGENTLY to those have been kicked to the curb. | | There is thousands of years of experience this population | carries. | TheOsiris wrote: | the effect this kind of thing has on the broader market is | that it makes everyone else reconsider their hiring plans. I | doubt there will be as many open positions after this | announcement and it won't all be from hiring | dcchambers wrote: | Will this saturate the market for all open programming/software | engineering positions? No. | | Will it disturb the market for engineers expecting to make | $500k/yr 2 years out of school? Absolutely. But most tech | stocks being down 50%+ YTD had already done that. | | I think there's going to be a lot more layoffs announced from | far more companies over the next 6-12 months. I think all of | those people will be able to find jobs, but I think many of | them will have to settle for significant pay cuts. The insane | TCs driven by an inflated stock market that were seen in | certain markets/from certain companies are certainly going away | for a long while. | | Personally, I wish that people in our industry would push for a | larger base salary-based comp and less stock-based. | kilolima wrote: | Yes, because they will be replaced with offshore labor or visa | workers. | _alex_ wrote: | more than that. Here's a tracker: https://layoffs.fyi | googlryas wrote: | It's not a given that everyone will be looking for a job | immediately. They're getting a multi-month severance package. | Some will look immediately - some will take a breather and | start looking in a few months - some will take the time to | switch careers or go back to school. Also, it is 15,000 people | presumably located around the globe - not just 15,000 people in | Menlo Park. | grumple wrote: | There are hundreds of thousands of new software jobs in the US | every year. Way more globally. This is a drop in the bucket. | | Shit, I get messaged about a thousand software jobs per year | and I'm just one guy. | ActionHank wrote: | The difference here is that it is all at once, and those same | companies are slowing hiring. Net effect is that there are | loads more people with prominent names on their resumes | competing for those jobs that the recruiters are canvasing en | masse with. Right now if you replied to one of those | positions they'd likely turn you down after a screening call | because the calibre of candidates on the market is really | high. | KptMarchewa wrote: | Very different roles. Also, corporate America employs millions | of people, so this is not a significant percent. | mrits wrote: | Also a lot of those people are going to take time off. A | large number of high earners that have worked at a place for | a decade and now have ~9 months paid vacation. | [deleted] | [deleted] | maerF0x0 wrote: | August US added 315K jobs including 68K professional services | and 7K information (idk what those categories actually mean). | | There's jobs for everyone who was laid off, but unclear if | they're as good/lucrative. | | source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/02/heres-where-the-jobs- | are-for... | mymyairduster wrote: | Yeah, it's a great time for these people to finally learn to | code | tigeroil wrote: | jannes wrote: | Shouldn't salaries just go down to pre-pandemic levels like the | headcounts? (not even sure if they increased during the | pandemic) | | According to the companies that's all that's happening here. | kasey_junk wrote: | Lots of these peoples compensation package is largely equity | based. Their pay has already taken a major hit. | jillesvangurp wrote: | They are actually going down because of inflation and the | lack of a full compensation for that. You get the same money | but it's worth less. | | As for unemployment figures; apparently they are very low | right now. Which suggests companies actually need to offer | more to be able to fill open vacancies. A few tens of | thousands highly employable people leaving the fang companies | is not going to change that. | pimbrah wrote: | salaries rarely and hardly ever go down. however inflation | does exactly that in real terms. This is an interesting | article about it: https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/9566.html | oblio wrote: | Obviously, if this continues at this rate. We'll be able to | judge in 3-6 months the full impact. | | Anyone who tells you otherwise is living in Lalaland. | | The main thing is figuring out what's the full impact. If it's | 10%+ of tech workers, the golden days are over for the vast | majority of tech workers. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | Honestly, tech companies that were formed in the last decade | have very little to show in terms of value creation. Majority | are unprofitable. Most will never make profits in a recession | AND tighter monetary environments. | | At the end of the day, businesses have to generate profits. | You can only defer that so long. And most tech companies have | been deferring it for a decade now. | [deleted] | SideQuark wrote: | The US alone has over 12 million people in tech. This few | workers, for a field that has incredibly low unemployment and | lots of open positions, is not going to have a problem | absorbing newly unemployed. | flatiron wrote: | I would also believe these lay offs are mainly in | recruitment and other HR roles and light on the hard core | tech roles. | weatherlite wrote: | Well Meta severely downsizing their HR department shows | you they're not gonna recruit much if at all. It's not a | great sign for someone looking for a job... | relativ575 wrote: | Were you around the dot com crash? It was much worse than | what is going on, layoffs happened left and right. But the | future would have never been better for tech jobs. So no, | incorrect to say anything for sure. | dsq wrote: | It was a bloodbath. Entire companies vanished like smoke. | johnvanommen wrote: | I've long argued that it was the "creative destruction" of | the dot com crash that made so many of the FAANGs possible. | | For instance, Amazon in Seattle benefited as thousands of | engineers found themselves out of work in 2000 and 2001. | | In addition, AWS was largely inspired by the fact that Sun | Microsystems refused to cut their pricing. Amazon was using | a lot of Oracle databases and Sun hardware, and when Sun | wouldn't negotiate their prices down, Bezos began to figure | out A Better Way. | | Bezos was particularly irked because there was a flood of | practically new Sun hardware available (due to the crash) | but Sun wouldn't negotiate on price, despite the market | being awash in high quality used hardware. | | Basically Bezos didn't want to spend $80,000 on a new Sun | server, but he also didn't want to run hardware that was | used. | mathverse wrote: | I wonder if comments like yours are said in good faith or in | fear or out of pure ignorance. Or all of the above combined. | | Proportionally these numbers would not make a difference in a | small European country. | oblio wrote: | These numbers are just the start of the avalanche... There | have been a lot of pie-in-the-sky initiatives, especially | as the result of the massive cash infusions during Covid. | | Now all that easy money is going away. | | The current numbers don't mean much, but they're just the | start. | dsq wrote: | It will probably spill over into the rest of the economy. | No matter how generous the severance, a fired worker | isn't going to be buying new cars, buying houses, or | taking expensive vacations. | nkozyra wrote: | That's cyclical, though. The question is always how long | the cycle lasts. | oblio wrote: | True. If recovery is faster than 6-12 months, life is | comparatively good. | | If recovery starts taking a few years, quality of life | drops a lot. | habinero wrote: | Y'all. It's not eng being laid off. Or, at least, only | marginally. | | This letter says mainly recruiting and biz depts. | paulgb wrote: | It says those will be "disproportionately affected", but | that could just mean that they represent (say) 10% of the | layoffs even though they make up 5% of the team. It doesn't | mean that the layoffs are mostly those folks. | amusedcyclist wrote: | Programmers don't make up more 10% of fb's employee base | anyway (a guess) so if you assume that fraction at both | fb and twitter you're looking at about 1500 additional | people looking for jobs not 15000. Suspect this has | little to no impact | TchoBeer wrote: | >Programmers don't make up more 10% of fb's employee base | anyway (a guess) if you check LinkedIn | (https://www.linkedin.com/company/facebook/people/), | about 33% are engineers. | amusedcyclist wrote: | It says about 12k are software engineers. Now it does say | 40k total employees instead of the real number but I | suspect software engineers are much more likely to be on | linkedin. Still fairly confident that its closer to 10% | than 33%. | mrep wrote: | No, standard is about half of full time employees are | programmers. This website has them at about 42%: | https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/facebook | paulgb wrote: | If that's the company-wide number, I imagine it's even | higher in the Family of Apps and Reality Labs groups (the | ones affected by layoffs), because it doesn't include | cross-org functions like facilities or accounting. | maltelandwehr wrote: | If you include Stripe, Klarna, Netflix, Uber, Robinhood, Snap, | Lyft, etc. tech layoffs in recent months have topped 100,000 | now. | jollyllama wrote: | Try ~50,000. https://layoffs.fyi/ | flakeoil wrote: | Add to that thousands of smaller companies laying of 10 | people here, 100 people there. We will not hear about it, but | it quickly adds up. | | In addition, we go from a phase where people new in the job | market (students etc) were being hired quickly to no one | hiring them. So there are both laid off people and new | entrants added to the pool. | CamelRocketFish wrote: | > In addition, we go from a phase where people new in the | job market (students etc) were being hired quickly to no | one hiring them. So there are both laid off people and new | entrants added to the pool. | | I don't think that's necessarily true. Hiring students is | much cheaper so companies may still hire them whilst | letting go of other expensive employees at a cost of | quality. | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | Which is about how many people Google itself hired over the | course of the Pandemic, for context. | | So it's not the end of the world. It really is a pretty minor | set back so far. | ransom1538 wrote: | [deleted] | lxrbst wrote: | These are mostly recruiters and biz people being laid | off, from all of those companies. Maybe stop spewing | panic infused ignorance. | ransom1538 wrote: | [deleted] | lxrbst wrote: | The submission itself is such a link. Did you even read | it, or just dive straight into the comments? | | > Recruiting will be disproportionately affected since | we're planning to hire fewer people next year. We're also | restructuring our business teams more substantially. | stonewhite wrote: | I believe you are talking about amazon hiring 100000 | warehouse workers, not google | [deleted] | j-krieger wrote: | I can't believe google hired 100k people during the | pandemic. Can you source this claim? | pyrrhotech wrote: | Of course not, because it was pulled from his ass. Google | had 120k employees in 2019, and 150k in 2021. Even with | churn, the OP is way off | bombcar wrote: | It could still be true if Google fired 70k people. But | we'd have heard of that. | bsimpson wrote: | Half of Googlers are temps: | | https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=56878 | | so double the numbers for a sense of how many people G | actually employs. | three_seagrass wrote: | TVCs are temps, vendors, and contractors - they aren't | typically considered hires. It's covering things like | mat/pat leave backfill to kitchen staff. | gonzo41 wrote: | It will have a big effect on salaries, however, it'd be a | momentous opportunity for upcoming startups to pick up some | bargain basement talent. | hardtke wrote: | Even if not true (and it very well could be be true), most | hiring managers will assume that the people let go were the | low performers in their roles. | blsapologist42 wrote: | AFAICT from people I know it's a mix | oblio wrote: | "Can someone think of the shareholder value?" | | Keep in mind it's always about people, not about soulless | entities. | relativ575 wrote: | Without those soulless entities who over hired by a large | numbers those people may not have their job in the first | place. So sympathize, but with perspective. | whatwherewhy wrote: | Let me shed a tear for these massively overpaid engineers | who will now have to make only measly 2-3x of the average | wage | oblio wrote: | They're still workers, don't be silly. | afpx wrote: | primates get a rush when they see peers beaten down | Gigablah wrote: | More like a crab bucket | gonzo41 wrote: | They'll have lots of options, and importantly, if they do | cycle back into startup land, they may just pick a | winner. | nemo44x wrote: | The next generation of startups that will become giants | are being started now. Right now is a great time to start | something new. | nfRfqX5n wrote: | And yet the company still makes 2-3x their salary in | profit | whatwherewhy wrote: | Hmm, so what? | strikelaserclaw wrote: | cost of living in those areas means these guys live at | best above middle class unless you want engineers to | essentially never have children and live in an apartment | all their life, then even 200-300k in these areas isn't | much. | oblio wrote: | I'm not going to address the other aspects in your | comment but: | | 1. Apartments can be perfectly fine for a happy life, | everywhere across the world. | | 2. Conception and child upbringing do not mandate having | a house. | scarface74 wrote: | This is not true in any city in the US by any | statistically valid definition of "middle class". | schnitzelstoat wrote: | > engineers to essentially never have children and live | in an apartment all their life | | Welcome to most of Europe. | paganel wrote: | As an engineer living in Europe and inside an apartment I | can confirm. | | Also wanted to add that when we want to feel less trapped | we can very easily escape to many other nice places that | surround us in the near vicinity, I usually go for | bookstores and coffee-shops (from where I'm writing this | comment), other people also choose parks, bike-rides, | stuff like that. We manage. | whatwherewhy wrote: | They could simply move. It's what normal people had to do | because these overpaid engineers outpriced them. | jressey wrote: | My 2 cents is that it's going to be mostly recruiters, sales, | customer success, and other misc operations folks. That's the | pattern I've been observing since the post-covid layoffs have | begun. | Vibgyor5 wrote: | plenty of PMs and PMMs being let go fwiw as per my feed | blsapologist42 wrote: | The Meta layoff has many engineers affected. Probably at | least ~2000 | btbuildem wrote: | Right.. so that's barely 1/5th of the layoffs | scarface74 wrote: | The US has 2.7 million developers. Who knows? They may have to | sully themselves and become "enterprise developers" like most | of the other 2.7 million developers... | patothon wrote: | Not all these people have the same jobs though so I'm not sure | what you are getting at. | marcus_holmes wrote: | I remember the dot-com (and Y2K) bust, when all the people who | got into tech for the money (and not the love of it) suddenly | decided to switch career. I hope the same happens now. | Ocerge wrote: | So you're implying only people who are passionate about tech | should be allowed to work in tech? This does not hold water | for almost any profession. Tech pays extremely well, and if | you can do the work, who cares how you feel about it? | lanstin wrote: | It is more fun to work with people that love the work they | are doing, who get jazzed up on covering all the corner | cases and really good test suites and efficient use of a | computer. People who will listen to tech talk for ten | minutes and then act like they are thinking, "how will this | get me director or VP by thirty" are less engaged and less | fun. | Bluecobra wrote: | During the dot-com days, you could get a job if you can fog | a mirror and turn on a PC. Now you typically need to get a | degree to get your foot in the door so at least there is a | vested interest. (Not to say there aren't talented people | without degrees.) I think the OP is talking about getting | rid of some of the dead weight. We've all worked with | someone who coasts along and wonder how the hell they have | a job in the first place. | dbish wrote: | Excitement about what you're doing brings excitement to | others too and many great ideas come from people tinkering | with side projects and the like. We shouldn't stop anyone | from going into tech on anything but competency but yes, | given the choice to hire someone passionate about it or | someone who sees it as a droll 9-5 with roughly equivalent | skill sets, I'd pick the passionate one. | nonethewiser wrote: | > So you're implying only people who are passionate about | tech should be allowed to work in tech? | | He said he hopes people voluntarily decide not to work in | tech. Why suggest he wants to disallow? | zmxz wrote: | You're reading it _wrong_. | | If you can do the work, awesome, no one cares how you feel | about it. But that's the keyword: *IF* you can. | | People who went into IT for the love of it are diligent by | default (from my personal experience) and CAN do the work. | Then you get people who enter IT for the money (nothing | wrong with that) and not all of them can do the work. | | Those are the show-stoppers usually which incur various | debts (from tech-debt to actual financial debt) because you | end up having to carry them. | | Let's not pretend as if they don't exist, there's so many | of them. | strix_varius wrote: | Absolutely, and it's hugely demoralizing to work with | them. | | A person like that was moved off of my team recently, and | the general lift on the team from just _having them gone_ | has been astounding. Everything is up: velocity, | stability, even just the vibe of technical planning | sessions. | shagie wrote: | https://web.archive.org/web/20160305234708/http://pyxisin | c.c... | | > We've known since the early sixties, but have never | come to grips with the implications that there are net | negative producing programmers (NNPPs) on almost all | projects, who insert enough spoilage to exceed the value | of their production. So, it is important to make the bold | statement: _Taking a poor performer off the team can | often be more productive than adding a good one_. [6, p. | 208] Although important, it is difficult to deal with the | NNPP. Most development managers do not handle negative | aspects of their programming staff well. This paper | discusses how to recognize NNPPs, and remedial actions | necessary for project success. | zmxz wrote: | This is awesome, thank you for that! | hnfong wrote: | Bit of a tangent, but it's kind of harder to hire as | well. | | Years ago when interviewing people I didn't have to | wonder as often how passionate the candidate actually is | towards the field, or whether they're just looking for a | high pay job. | | These days I get those doubts a bit more. I think most | people are still at least somewhat passionate though | (bad/awkward programmer tooling which we've gotten used | to are somehow great filters....) | chasd00 wrote: | I once had to fire that person. I hated it, it was very | hard to do because they guy was a personal friend of mine | and he never talked to me again afterwards. However, it | fixed the team and we went on to do a lot of very good | work that we couldn't have done otherwise. | maerF0x0 wrote: | I dont really care why you got into it so long as you remain | excellent while you're here. the Problem is the (seeming) | correlation between money driven motivation and apathetic | (sub)mediocrity. | paganel wrote: | For me it's about how CV-obsessed our industry has become, | which you could say that is also caused by the money | factor. | | Basic things like the KISS principle have been thrown in | the garbage can, almost all that matters is how the tech | we're now using can further increase our career prospects. | samuraijack wrote: | Bluecobra wrote: | Makes me wonder if there's enough layoffs coupled with a | recession, corps would use this to get people back in the | office and eliminate WFH. | acjohnson55 wrote: | They can try. But it would be a better time to build a team | without the overhead of renting office space. I guess it | depends on whether companies see an opportunity to wind back | leverage from employees or to embrace new possibilities. | [deleted] | tootie wrote: | Comps will come down from the stratosphere but good devs will | not be unemployed long. They may fall to less exciting roles at | banks or other traditional tech, but there's still tons of | demand. | patkai wrote: | Where would you advertise for ex-Meta or ex-Twitter developers? | optymizer wrote: | lots of us read HN, so maybe in one of the usual hiring threads | here | postexitus wrote: | teamblind.com | obert wrote: | Like with all lay offs, the move to cut discretionary spending | and perks may also impact employee morale and motivation, and the | decision to extend the hiring freeze may also limit potential | growth within the company... it's going to get worse before | getting better | stillametamate wrote: | andreysolsty wrote: | Im really curious how severance in non-US jurisdictions works in | these cases. Both stripe and Facebook are offering WAY more than | required by UK law for example. Do they offer similar packages to | any UK staff laid off? Or do they assume that with a better | social safety net they can get away with just following their | legal requirements? | Eisenstein wrote: | > do they assume that with a better social safety net they can | get away with just following their legal requirements? | | If they are offering above and beyond severance for the US, why | would they be looking to 'get away' with anything like that? | They could 'get away' with offering the US workers the minimum | possible package yet they didn't. Maybe they don't want to burn | bridges, or maybe they want the good (or non-bad) PR, or maybe | the management are decent humans, but they are doing it for | some reason and there is no indication to think that the reason | wouldn't also apply in other national jurisdictions. | glintik wrote: | That's ok, they hired too much people too fast. Ad revenues go | down, they need to save money. | sagebird wrote: | While many are commenting that these layoffs are sensible given | the situation, I am fearful that laying off approximately 13% of | Meta employees will lead to a less connected world. I don't think | people fully understand the magnitude of step-backwards it will | be in terms of people connecting in this world. Does Zuckerberg | take responsibility for what this will mean to people who simply | need to connect more through great products developed by Facebook | and future technologies being developed by Meta? | FartyMcFarter wrote: | If this was sarcasm, well done :) | sagebird wrote: | I wouldn't dare ;) | osuairt wrote: | Facebook is cancer. | sagebird wrote: | To the people downvoting my post- would you care to explain | what possible alternatives could exist that would fulfill | Facebook's mission - "to give people the power to share and | make the world more open and connected"? | | I sense a deeply cynical and dismissive tone from many | commenters and I sincerely wonder how many of you have given | any honest thought to Facebook's mission- or the many great | products and features that support that mission. Given the | importance of the mission, I find it hard to believe that | cutting the workforce by 13% will have anything but dire | consequences . Akin to the Middle Ages, or AI winter, humans | will almost certainly suffer from being less connected. But | what I haven't heard is calls governments or ngos stepping in | to provide funding to lighten the shockwaves of this disruption | to connectivity. Surely, this must be considered. When | comparing Meta's mission to that of- say- automakers, or | financial lending institutions- isn't it clear that creating a | more connected world should take priority? | britch wrote: | What is your concern here? What does "a more connected world" | actually mean? | sagebird wrote: | Do you think that Meta could be worth 273 billion, and yet | promulgate a false, inaccurate or misleading mission | statement? Perhaps, but it would not seem like it would | instill much confidence in the company leadership. | hnfong wrote: | Twitter was allegedly worth 44 billion and Elon Musk would | be willing to change its mission statement to a turd if | that got him lols. | | So, yes. | Reason077 wrote: | Zuck Zorg fires 1 million: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0mO6UY6uTg | DarkGroku wrote: | FB still making 4Billion in profit, all the comments here dont | seem to talk about that Twitter wasnt profitable, FB is and laid | off 4x the amount of employees, Zuck just saw Musk do it and | thought itd be a perfect time while the attention is on Musk and | Twitter, that letter Zuck wrote is sick and sounds like its | written by a sad emotionless robot he brags about how profitable | Meta is in that letter its pathetic, reminds me of the 70s and | Reagan and neoliberalism making changes to laws to allow capital | flight from New York to the south and firing all the well paid | factory workers in the Bronx 10,000 families now without a | breadwinner over night Zuck blew through billions on his VR | research that no ones buying and just saw the perfect opening to | sharpen his technocrat knives and surgically remove 11,000 | employees even though they all contributed to making Meta be 4B | in profit and it was Zuck who blew billions he needs his stock to | bounce back so he can continue buying the rest of Hawaii | hbn wrote: | All these layoffs seem to follow the same format of "we're sad | to have to let you all go even though business is booming and | we're pulling in more money than ever!" | | I assume it's for the shareholders. A plain "we're laying | people off" letter without the asterisk of how good they're | doing is just asking for people to cash out. | ericd wrote: | Sorry for all the people who've lost their jobs, but I'm excited | to see the awesome world-changing stuff they'll make now that | they're not spending their time building FB/Instagram. | randomsearch wrote: | Do you think that great, world-changing, folks go to Facebook | to sit on a big salary? if they were going to do something | awesome they probably wouldn't have been working there. | | now, if google lay off a lot of people... that would be | different | seydor wrote: | facebook making a lot of money doesnt imply that they are | making something great | | > if they were going to do something awesome they probably | wouldn't have been working there. | | For the past 10+ years, in this forum, the advice is to stop | trying to build something, go work at Faang | voisin wrote: | > For the past 10+ years, in this forum, the advice is to | stop trying to build something, go work at Faang | | I think the advice given, when requested, has much more | nuance that takes into account the context provided in the | request. Do you honestly think HN is just a bunch of FAANG | fanboys? | seydor wrote: | > Do you honestly think HN is just a bunch of FAANG | fanboys? | | Based on what is being upvoted, and what is not being | downvoted, yes | twelve40 wrote: | I think that many great, world-changing, folks have a non- | linear life path and may end up doing all kinds of things | including working for evil corporations for money, or bussing | tables at Denny's before they get to the actual great, world- | changing stuff. | kilovoltaire wrote: | Google and Facebook are both advertising companies, doesn't | seem that different to me. | ausudhz wrote: | "world changing" | randomsearch wrote: | To call Google an "advertising company" is disingenuous and | I suspect you know that. Whilst Facebook has been obsessed | with chasing eyeballs and advertising, Google has built | Google maps, Gmail, Android, Translate, all kinds of | search, GCP, the leading web browser, Chromebooks, self | driving cars, the most advanced quantum computer, world | leading AI research and a ton more. | | There's no comparison to Facebook. | achenet wrote: | their money comes from ads. Of all the things you | mentioned - | | Maps I'm pretty sure is a loss leader or used for data | for ads | | Gmail as well | | Android is platform to hit you with ads | | Chrome/Chromeboooks also | | GCP is actually a viable business, albeit in a very | competitive market | | self driving cars, research, quantum computers, none of | those make money. | | There is a perfect comparison to Facebook, and for that | matter, MTV and the New York Times. They all make money | by selling ads. | andsoitis wrote: | > To call Google an "advertising company" is disingenuous | | It probably depends on one's perspective. Their Q3'22 | financials show that $54b of their $69b revenue for the | quarter is advertising income. It is also listed first in | their financials. | | https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/2022Q3_alphabet_earni | ngs... | stewx wrote: | What is Google doing to change the world right now? | randomsearch wrote: | One example: advancing quantum computing. | throwaw20221107 wrote: | Another example: AI research | thrown_22 wrote: | From what I hear on the grapevine the people getting laid off | today are the people who would have gone on wall street 20 | years ago. | | >now, if google lay off a lot of people... that would be | different | | The culture in google isn't any better. Smart people who want | to do things haven't gone there since 2012. | monktastic1 wrote: | You may be thinking of the Google from 10+ years ago. I left | all the way back in 2016 and the Alphabet transition had | already turned it soulless. I've heard it certainly hasn't | gotten better since. | micromacrofoot wrote: | > Do you think that great, world-changing, folks go to | Facebook to sit on a big salary? | | Yes, have you seen the salaries recently? an E6 can make | nearly half a million a year in total compensation. | whymauri wrote: | Also, I can think of many people who would be building | amazing things outside FAANG but choose to go to FAANG to | pay off college debts or to build wealth i.e. they come | from poverty. Let's not even get into biases in how capital | is distributed. Like, there's a hierarchy of basic needs | for a person and their family before they can turn down | life changing compensation to 'build something cool!'. | micromacrofoot wrote: | I spent the first 10 years of my career paying off | student debt. The last 5 have been catching up on the | retirement savings I missed out on over the first 10 | years. As long as I don't have a major medical event | maybe I can turn down a job and "build something cool" | when I'm 50. | erikpukinskis wrote: | FWIW I'm currently working on a startup side project with | someone at Meta. I don't know that we're going to "change the | world" but I think we're both awesome and I can see us | building something awesome. | | We both have jobs because we need to pay our bills. | randomsearch wrote: | I think there are better places to work that allow you (or | cofounder) to pay your bills - even if your bills have to | shrink a bit to fit. | | Best of luck with the side project, hope it entices | you/your cofounder to leave Facebook. | swalsh wrote: | Getting laid off during a tech crash often leads to smart | people deciding to finally follow the dreams they couldn't | justify during the tech bull market. There's probably no | shortage of people working at Facebook who have dreams of | quitting to build some idea they have. But quitting a job | paying 350k or whatever is just not in the cards. | snapcaster wrote: | I don't work at either, but aren't they both advertising | companies with roughly same kinds of people working at them? | Why do you think it would be different? | adamsb6 wrote: | If you want to work on interesting massive-scale infra | problems there are few better places than Meta. | DarkGroku wrote: | FB still making 4Billion in profit, all the comments here dont | seem to talk about that Twitter wasnt profitable, FB is and | laid off 4x the amount of employees, Zuck just saw Musk do it | and thought itd be a perfect time while the attention is on | Musk and Twitter, that letter Zuck wrote is sick and sounds | like its written by a sad emotionless robot he brags about how | profitable Meta is in that letter its pathetic, reminds me of | the 70s and Reagan and neoliberalism making changes to laws to | allow capital flight from New York to the south and firing all | the well paid factory workers in the Bronx 10,000 families now | without a breadwinner over night Zuck blew through billions on | his VR research that no ones buying and just saw the perfect | opening to sharpen his technocrat knives and surgically remove | 11,000 employees even though they all contributed to making | Meta be 4B in profit and it was Zuck who blew billions he needs | his stock to bounce back so he can continue buying the rest of | Hawaii | colinmhayes wrote: | I mean meta is a business, not a charity. They're not going | to employee people who aren't furthering the mission. | madengr wrote: | optymizer wrote: | The one thing I want is the ability to work on my own startup | in my spare time, without fearing legal repercussions. It | wouldn't require me to risk my house on an idea. | kadomony wrote: | I mean, the "world-changing" stuff they're investing in is what | directly led to this layoff. The metaverse was the most heavily | impacted by these layoffs. | swalsh wrote: | Smart people can also change the world by working on climate | change, improving healthcare costs, addressing the energy | crisis, coming up with new ways to mass manufacturer consumer | goods at reasonable prices without shipping things halfway | around the world and back, help an increasingly aging | population do basic stuff.... the metaverse (maybe crypto?) | were just natural evolutions of existing business models, but | these weren't the world changing things people need, so | capitalism (the brutal nature is why it works) didn't reward | it. | | If these smart people spend their brain energy to address | these needs, which the world actually needs, they'll find | success again, and the world will be changed in the way it | needs to be... and frankly that's the way capitalism is | supposed to work. Changing the world is only rewarded when | people want it. | throwaw20221107 wrote: | Lol way too hard given all the politics and gatekeepers in | those fields. Doing software is so much easier than that | right now. | | And I disagree that solving climate change etc. is a "need" | for most people. I think we all pretty much accept that | climate change is going to happen unless some major coups | or revolutions take place, and there's nothing we can do | about it. Seems like the plan for the individual is just to | ride it out for our 80 years, or until there's some food | shortage or water crisis that kills us. | ct0 wrote: | Meta didnt just lay off metaverse related employees according | to my source. | kadomony wrote: | Didn't say that it was solely them. But they absolutely got | carved up. | beeboop wrote: | There are other people commenting saying it was much | lighter than expected and light compared to other cuts | loeg wrote: | > The metaverse was the most heavily impacted by these | layoffs. | | Where are you hearing that? | daniel_iversen wrote: | Yeah, someone posting above literally said that their AR/VR | teams were left pretty much unscathed. In fairness these | teams might also be a lot smaller and more "optimised" in | desired structure as they're younger than the rest of the | company. | Taylor_OD wrote: | Recruiting/TA is the most heavily impacted and the post | says as much... People just love to have the Metaverse. | bergenty wrote: | Not true. The AR/VR group is mostly unaffected. | amusedcyclist wrote: | There were some contradictory signals about this in the | article. In one bit Mark says they are continuing to focus on | the metaverse but he also says some people at Reality labs | will be affected. But it sounds like the apps teams are going | to be affected too | nottorp wrote: | What's that metaverse? Never been able to figure it out. | rkuykendall-com wrote: | Metaverse is like NFTs. You can have it explained to you a | dozen times but it will never make sense because it doesn't | make sense. | dqpb wrote: | "Ready Player One" is a pretty concrete illustration of | what a Metaverse is. | | It may not be realistic or desirable, but I don't get how | someone couldn't possibly wrap their head around what it | is. | nottorp wrote: | So I have to watch a 2 hour movie? Can't they explain it | in like 1 paragraph? | the_doctah wrote: | VR with a multidirection treadmill | ar_lan wrote: | Well, actually, the movie is based on a book, which is | much more than a single paragraph. | ericd wrote: | Multipurpose VR-based persistent alternate reality. | SV_BubbleTime wrote: | I own an Oculus 2, I really love Half Life Alyx, I had a | PC that works well for VR... | | I have no idea if Metaverse is a game you download and | run or it's supposed to be some tokens you take from game | to game. I just have no idea. I've seen the creepy/shitty | Zuck avatars, so I assume there is some chat-game | involved somewhere. | | Notice there are no questions in this post. I don't care | to learn. Just re-stating how poor the messaging of what | it is they apparently want me to care about is. | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | A new place to sell ads. | hashtag-til wrote: | I'm sure there are lots of competent people putting a lot | of effort in "Metaverse", but to me it looks really just | yet another VR world. Does anyone know what is the concrete | new thing it would make successful? | nottorp wrote: | They could buy Second Life i guess :) | system2 wrote: | Just a name change for FB's parent company. Also zucc | wanted to excite people with VR stuff but it is not even | close to 5 years ago Recroom experience yet. | clavalle wrote: | Considering the severance, Meta might have just realeased the | biggest pre-seed funded class ever. | vthallam wrote: | I work here and wasn't affected. But that's how I saw the | severance. Anyone who doesn't have visa issues could literally | pursue their ideas for the next 6 months. | throwaw20221107 wrote: | >6 months | | more like 6 years, unless you're a new grad with no savings, | or unless you somehow managed to burn through your 200K/yr | salary every year. Probably decades if you migrate to an | LCOL. | | Edit: oh, you meant 6 months on the severance alone. Yep | jcpst wrote: | "Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration | that would continue even after the pandemic ended." | | It's not over yet. | ThinkBeat wrote: | What is the composition of roles that are getting fired? I | naturally tend to think about programmers but Meta (and the other | big tech companies that have had big firings) have roles all over | the place | | Are they mostly getting rid of programmers? | pm90 wrote: | Anecdotally from Blind its mostly recruiters and business ops, | but engineers as well (but not exclusively). Distribution is | not yet known. | system2 wrote: | So from the looks of it, the investors see this as a good move. | In 5 days Meta stock went up nearly 20% from $82 to $105. | | Dramatic news but company holds stronger than last week. | redleggedfrog wrote: | Alright people the talent pool just got more fish. Go get 'em! | SCAQTony wrote: | Perhaps a strong, independent board of directors could have | mitigated this fiasco. The meta-verse never looked like a good | idea especially after previous failures like "Second Life." YMMV | | https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/10/faceb... | daniel_iversen wrote: | You can't really predict the future like that.. there were lots | of mp3 players, tablets, smart phones, smart watches etc. | before the ones that "hit it off" and made a lot of money. I'd | think the theory is Meta has the money to invest for the long | term as the market is building and become a leader. | jimcavel888 wrote: | Animats wrote: | How much of the "metaverse" group is being laid off? Anyone know? | ummonk wrote: | We're probably going to see a decline in market comp / offer | competitiveness as the flood of big tech layoffs hits the job | market and startups feed on the offerings from big companies. | CosmicShadow wrote: | But can they hire at least 1 person who can fix all the glaring | user interface bugs on their core web app? The trade would be | worth it. | pmontra wrote: | > At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and the | surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth. Many people | predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would | continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the | decision to significantly increase our investments. | Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected. | | This is very similar to the Stripe layoff memo at | https://stripe.com/en-it/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons... | | The structure of the two documents is very similar too. Is that a | standard pattern of did Meta took Stripe's memo and adapted it to | suit their needs? | refurb wrote: | Not surprising. I've been a part of a team that developed these | memos. | | When it's bad news, it's never about the truth (well, rather | it's not about accuracy), but about the simplest explanation | you can give that people might somewhat believe. | shafyy wrote: | I just don't buy that they naively thought that everything | would keep growing like it did during the pandemic once the | pandemic was over. It seems like a welcome excuse. | grey-area wrote: | They were willing for their new employees to take that risk. | bombcar wrote: | They thought it would be a paradigm shift and didn't want to | be caught out and dinosaured. | | For them that risk was much greater. | shafyy wrote: | In other words, they took the very real risk of needing to | fire almost all people they hired during the pandemic again | knowingly, because God forbid they missed that percent of | growth of they didn't. | bombcar wrote: | The survival risk isn't the percent of growth, it's | missing something entirely (which could still happen, of | course). | | They all sound silly in retrospect but FB has to worry | about things like "everyone starts using Zoom because of | the pandemic and Zoom adds Chat and Ads and Facebook | dies". | vanilla-almond wrote: | Shopify announced staff layoffs in July 2022. The Shopify CEO | expressed the same sentiment repeated later by Stripe and | Facebook: | | " _...given what we saw, we placed another bet: We bet that the | channel mix - the share of dollars that travel through | ecommerce rather than physical retail - would permanently leap | ahead by 5 or even 10 years._ " | | " _It's now clear that bet didn't pay off. What we see now is | the mix reverting to roughly where pre-Covid data would have | suggested it should be at this point._ " | | https://news.shopify.com/changes-to-shopifys-team | mabbo wrote: | Yeah seriously, I read the meta announcement and thought "Did | you just steal Tobi's letter and do some find/replace on it?" | [deleted] | geniium wrote: | OpenAI rephrase | lafreb wrote: | Not only the structure, the wording is also identical: | | "Today I'm sharing some of the most difficult changes we've | made in Meta's history." | | "Today we're announcing the hardest change we have had to make | at Stripe to date." | | "At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and the | surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth." | | "At the outset of the pandemic in 2020, the world rotated | overnight towards e-commerce." | | "There is no good way to do a layoff, but we hope to [...] do | whatever we can to support you through this." | | "There's no good way to do a layoff, but we're going to [...] | do whatever we can to help." | | etc. | bjourne wrote: | That just can't be a coincidence. American tech giants are | again colluding to control the job market for software | developers. | z3c0 wrote: | We must have massively different world views, or at least | different definitions to colluding. This doesn't survive | Hanlon's Razor. At worst, this is corporate corner-cutting, | not collusion. | dontwatchthis wrote: | well they saw the postive feedback that the Stripe comments | got and plagiarised it | KingOfCoders wrote: | Corporate robots are the same everywhere. | la64710 wrote: | The overlords saw they were losing control with people | opting to WFH and great resignation ... so they said "What | audacity ... inflict pain and suffering on the mortals". | hdjjhhvvhga wrote: | Well, we'll see who wins. | | My prediction: after a rough period, the situation | stabilizes and a pattern emerges: most white-collar | workers will try to land a job with companies offering | remote and hybrid work whereas the rest will have to have | a stationary job and work their way up to upgrade to | remote/hybrid. | whymauri wrote: | it took the collective brain power of an army of Big Three | management consultant alumni to draft this soulless | document. | marcus0x62 wrote: | The two companies probably hired the same consulting firm | to plan their respective layoffs. | SilasX wrote: | Or, the dynamics behind the two events are very similar and | there's only so many different ways to describe it, so you | shouldn't expect significant variation in how they're | described. | | Not everything has to be 100% brand-new and unique. | threeseed wrote: | Also known as best practice. | | The whole point of HR/PR in these situations is to make the | situation as forgettable as possible. | maerF0x0 wrote: | > best practice. | | Which is actually average practice... and in most | distributions that's definitionally not the best. | Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: | Your say best practice, I see apologies for doublespeak | and the attempt to normalize unaccountable dehumanizing | statements from corporate lackeys. | swader999 wrote: | Telling the truth is always better. | | "I bet the company on metaverse and I was wrong." Or, | "now looks like a really good time to lay everyone off | because all the other companies are doing it too" | travisporter wrote: | zuck did say "I want to take accountability for these | decisions and for how we got here." | bart_spoon wrote: | Is he laying off himself too? Because simply saying "I | take accountability" without any actual consequences | isn't taking accountability. | [deleted] | namdnay wrote: | he lost 75% of his personal wealth, so there have been | pretty real consequences for him already | solardev wrote: | What does that even mean? He won't have to work for a few | centuries instead of a millennium? Lol. | | Compared to his employees' livelihoods, a billionaire | losing some bit of their immeasurable wealth is | irrelevant. He made a stupid bet and doesn't suffer any | real consequences for it because Meta has no real | accountability. | kortilla wrote: | That wealth is not "immeasurable". It's just hard for | someone to understand when their point of comparison is | personal finances. | | It directly impacts his ability to start new companies, | new charities, etc. This is on the scale of wiping out | the abilities to create fabs, do infrastructure projects, | etc. | solardev wrote: | Sounds like a good thing. Last thing we need is | billionaires owning more things. | dsfyu404ed wrote: | If we want to treat the numbers as meaningful and make | low effort quips about wealth inequality being bad for | society when they go up then we must also concede that it | is meaningfully bad for him when the numbers go down if | we are to be logically consistent. | | Personally I think beyond a couple billion it serves no | purpose for quality of life for anyone and we only care | in order to crudely "keep score" of who's in charge of | more "stuff" since it can't really be liquidated or | repurposed other endeavors efficiently and these people | are de-factor world leaders in some capacity (a private | industry analogue to GDP if you will). | solardev wrote: | It's not a logical inconsistency to point out that | dollars matter a lot less once you have enough. | | The difference between having a dollar and ten dollars a | day is huge. The difference between a hundred and a | thousand a day is still big, sure, but you're probably | not going to die of starvation either way. And once | you're in dev salary land and higher, you're counting | bedrooms, acres, cars, vacations, yachts... | | The wealth inequality thing matters not because Bezos has | spaceships and Zuckerberg only has 3d glasses. It's that | we still have millions of people with food and shelter | insecurity, regardless of how much the richest have. | | It's not a linear thing. Zuckerberg losing a few million | is utterly meaningless vs a regular family losing a few | thousand. | achenet wrote: | > If we want to treat the numbers as meaningful and make | low effort quips about wealth inequality being bad for | society when they go up then we must also concede that it | is meaningfully bad for him when the numbers go down if | we are to be logically consistent. | | No. If wealth inequality is bad, that does not imply | wealth is good. | | If we simply assume inequality is the bad thing, then we | could deduce that the best society would be hunter | gatherers with zero wealth, and Zuck losing wealth is a | good thing, because it makes society more equal. | | It is therefore logically consistent to say "wealth | inequality is bad and Zuck losing wealth is good". | vocram wrote: | Losing 75% of wealth is the consequence of holding meta | stocks, but it does not make him immune to | accountability. | semiquaver wrote: | For better or worse (obviously for worse) his | relationship with the company is fundamentally different | than that of every other employee. He's a founder and | holds a majority of voting equity. That makes him | inherently _unaccountable_ in a way that is nearly | without precedent in the modern corporate era. | kortilla wrote: | Losing 70% of his net worth makes him directly | accountable to the success of the company (lack thereof). | vinay_ys wrote: | What does taking accountability mean for a permanent CEO | who cannot be fired by anyone? | solardev wrote: | It means writing a really heartfelt form letter. | dasil003 wrote: | Even if he did, would anyone believe it? This is | Zuckerberg we're talking about. | rqtwteye wrote: | As much as "thoughts and prayers". It mainly makes the | CEO feel better. | chiefalchemist wrote: | And who else is accountable? He's the top dog. And | apparently well paid to state the obvious. | sireat wrote: | Typical Gavin Belson move: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u48vYSLvKNQ | | Of course it has been done for millennia. | | How does a CEO with enough class B shares to control | shareholder voting take accountability? | | Self flagellation perhaps? | snapcaster wrote: | Are you trolling? that would be worse for literally | everyone involved. Have you held yourself to this | standard in your professional life? it seems so absurd | swader999 wrote: | Yeah, in 2008 I saw the writing on the wall. Told my team | we'd all be laid off soon. I finished the project I was | on first and was the first laid off due to no more work. | throwawaylinux wrote: | The tech industry labor market has been cooling rapidly | this year, it's not only ad-tech companies, and certainly | not only in companies who might have over-hired due to | betting everything on metaverse. | stingraycharles wrote: | I don't think it's that simple -- yes maybe in private | you could say that, but this would set them up for an | investor revolt or make them come across as huge assholes | if they say things like that. | | They may be true, but telling it to everyone is | definitely not always better. | deltasevennine wrote: | Of course. It's not about the best move or what looks | better. Nobody cares for that. | | It's about the truth. That's what people care about in | the end. And if none of it was said here, parent is | pointing out that Mark is truly an ass. Something like | "laying off people because other companies are doing it" | is pretty fucked up. | cmmeur01 wrote: | Making shit up to obscure the truth is a way bigger | asshole move than just telling the truth. | themitigating wrote: | What did they lie about? | themihai wrote: | Many people can't handle the truth. That's why see weird | situations that don't make sense(i.e religion, populist | leaders, snakeoil etc) | joshspankit wrote: | Would telling the truth be better if the real truth was | "We've been waiting for a good excuse to drop a bunch of | people and boost the bottom line short-term so we can get | some loans"? | | _p.s. I'm making up a scenario based on other | businesses, I have no idea what meta is doing these days_ | rinze wrote: | > I have no idea what meta is doing these days | | What you said, but in a Second Life clone. | nonrandomstring wrote: | > the truth is always better | | A favourite Mr. Robot scenes has everybody at the AllSafe | office wearing a giant badge with their most fundamental | truth written on it. It mocks a "post-privacy" some fools | advocate, via the cynical eyes of Esmail's hacker | character Elliot. | | Point being; human relations don't work on "truths" but | on carefully managed mutually secured fictions and | personas to protect us and preserve power relations. | Traditionally we call those "manners" (tactical lying so | others can save face etc). But for the comedy of | unexpectedly volunteered truths, who wouldn't enjoy a | Mufti Day, where everyone at work gets to speak the | unvarnished truth with absolute impunity for a day? | mensetmanusman wrote: | Or the fed increased interest rates and the economy is | forced into recession too stop inflation. | KingOfCoders wrote: | Yes, perhaps for legal reasons, but what does using a | template that feesl like GPT-3 tell the people about | management that are still with the company? | alvis wrote: | Honestly I think GTP-3 can generate a much better human- | touched message than the template | osigurdson wrote: | Typo: GPT-3 | mromanuk wrote: | That would make it very simple for real AI bots to take its | place. | shswkna wrote: | KingOfCoders wrote: | Exactly! My #TF2 nick is "Sheep with a gun"! | shswkna wrote: | I replied by editing my original comment. I got flagged, | so I thought it appropriate to edit my comment to | motivate what I posted. | | My comment 'Sheep commentors everywhere' was a reply to | your post 'Corporate robots everywhere', intending to | mirror the original comment. | | I tried to elaborate this in my edited update of my | comment above. I can see why it got flagged, but my | intention was different to how it was understood, IMO. | ChrisRR wrote: | Probably from a "How to make people redundant" template | paulcole wrote: | The wording is quite similar but I don't think _identical_ is | the word you're looking for. | treffer wrote: | At least the last sentence reminds me of "The hard thing | about hard things". | stulentsev wrote: | - hey, can I copy your homework? - sure, but change it so it | doesn't look like a copy | papito wrote: | Seriously. The sweetest words to me would be: "Here is your | six months severance and full medical, now get your shit and | get out!" | bhouston wrote: | Someone did crib the Stripe layoff notice at Meta. Strange, | but yeah, obviously someone at Meta did base it on this | Stripe one. | texasbigdata wrote: | Don't they share either Kleiner or Anderson horowitz as | common investors and board members? | bombcar wrote: | I dare say that once some are out the others look to them | and copy what they can if it worked. | | I bet they may even adjust severance etc to be slightly | better than previous ones to make the company look better. | Facebook can afford to spend money on PR. | chank wrote: | Layoffs have become so normalized these days, I'm sure they | have templates. | hiyer wrote: | Startup idea - layoff mail generator using GPT-3. | klyrs wrote: | Why stop at HR, the whole c-suite is a massive cost center | and ripe for disruption. | dopidopHN wrote: | Exactly. GPT3 for conversations, some humain actor giving | enough materials so the C suite can appears in all hands | and the likes thought realistic model ( not the meta crap | ) | | The rest is implementation details. | arminiusreturns wrote: | Recently there was an ask hn that was "What SaaS do you | wish existed". My response was "c-suite replacment". | | I've been priveledged enough to see the insides of | hundreds of companies. The problem is _ALWAYS_ the | leadership! (or lack thereof) | klyrs wrote: | I haven't seen inside very many, but when I was at | university I participated in bargaining with the execs | there; I've also interacted with execs of the small- and | medium-sized companies I've worked at. Regardless of the | purpose and scale of the organization, they all seemed to | be emitting the same blandishments, always loosely | correlated to context... | deltasevennine wrote: | Why stop at the c-suite? We may not be close to being | ready to disrupt software engineering but the trend is | heading in that direction. We already passed a milestone | for code generation. | | Realistically, C-suite probably will probably target | engineers first before letting themselves get replaced by | AI. It may be fractionally partially responsible for the | current layoff. | klyrs wrote: | Hey now, that's my job ;) | ddalex wrote: | No need to go fancy when copy paste will suffice | macNchz wrote: | I experimented with making a GPT-3 excuse generator for | getting out of work/school a while ago^. We can look | forward to a future of incredible synergy, as employees | dodge work with AI generated notes and are summarily fired | by an AI! | | ^I didn't get very far because realistic excuses were | boring and I had more fun trying to get it to come up with | increasingly bizarre ones: | | "I can't come in today because..." | | - I'm made of glass, so I'm stuck in the mirror dimension | | - I am now a living manifestation of numbers, so I can't | leave my house | | - I've become a sentient, living version of the internet, | so I am now the human race's collective conscience | | - I am now an extra dimensional being made of fire, so I am | now on fire | | - I am now a living, malevolent, super intelligent, hyper | dimensional cloud, so I am now an intangible, invisible, | shapeless, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, infinitely | powerful, god like entity, I am now everything and nothing | selimthegrim wrote: | > - I am now a living manifestation of numbers, so I | can't leave my house | | I guess GPT-3 has never played Numberwang | metadat wrote: | Please create a writeup on this, utterly hilarious. | peteradio wrote: | I could do it in 50 lines or less of python, including | sending the mail to the loosers. | loeg wrote: | Same layoff consultants? | rufus_foreman wrote: | Don't companies usually use consultants to plan layoffs? | alvis wrote: | Corporate robots are the same, that's why corporate mistakes | are also the same :/ | system2 wrote: | This is scary. | mysterydip wrote: | When has there ever been a "permanent acceleration" in revenue | growth for any company? Or do I misunderstand what they're | saying? | Retric wrote: | It's not unheard of for some outside force to result in | surges in profits that last much longer than 2 years. | Unfortunately, it can be really hard to tell if say the Among | Us surge in popularity from streamers was going to stick | around or not. Someone in the company was trying to figure | out if it would be an enduring hit like Minecraft or just | another fad, and as frequently happens they chose poorly. | [deleted] | 0xmohit wrote: | Everybody used the same AI to write the memo. | nemo44x wrote: | It's just corporate speak. | Abecid wrote: | Holy shit you're right | pachico wrote: | Someone used https://quillbot.com/ with that memo and replaced | the company name. Job done! | 0xmohit wrote: | It seems to do an awful job. | | Input: | | "At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and | the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth." | | Results in: | | "When Covid first launched, the world was moving quickly | online, and the e-commerce boom caused an astronomical | increase in revenue." | Traubenfuchs wrote: | This reads like a grade schooler trying to plagiarize | something with his first thesaurus. I am disappointed by AI | every day. | sodality2 wrote: | It's deterministic based off the same input, so it | doesn't look like AI. | meijer wrote: | Is this even true? I thought the monetary policy of the Fed (as | a reaction to Covid) simply made investments cheaper. | octodog wrote: | Both can be true. But maybe one sounds more sincere than the | other. | gbil wrote: | a few days ago I heard a new for me term and immediately I | thought of gartner etc. And guess what, a quick google search | and for sure gartner created that term | | I wouldn't be surprised therefore if the structure/content is | part of a consulting company's latest material | nibbleshifter wrote: | > Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration | that would continue even after the pandemic ended | | Who predicted this? | | The general consensus among folks I know was that the economy | was in for an ass blasting once the pandemic supports were | removed. | sbarre wrote: | I think the whole "many predicted" statement that several | large tech companies have used to thin out all the pandemic | hires is cover for the fact that they boom-hired during the | pandemic knowing full well they would very likely have to | shed those hires when things went back to pre-pandemic levels | and the opportunity for short-term profit was over. | | Shopify called it a "bet", which was a surprisingly honest | way of framing it, by at least admitting to the risk and | uncertainty that existed around all their growth. | | Also saying "many predicted" is less culpable than saying "we | kinda knew we'd have to eventually do this, but hey short- | term profits, right?" | wbl wrote: | Tech projects aren't tightly tied to revenue increases. | edouard-harris wrote: | That seems a bit unfair. Every successful founder is | irrationally optimistic about their own business -- that's | partly how they became successful in the first place. It | doesn't seem at all unlikely that Zuck, Lutke, the | Collisons, and many, many others all made the same wrong | directional bet and ended up over their skis for perfectly | sincere reasons. | | In case one has trouble recalling, way back in the dark | ages of 2.5 years ago, when these investments were first | being made, neither the duration nor the outcome of the | pandemic were at all clear to anyone. | sbarre wrote: | Who said anything about fair? When has fairness ever | factored into business? | | If a company sees an opportunity to make money, short or | long term, they take it. That's just good business, | right? | | There is a cold calculation that happens.. If we do this, | will we come out ahead at some point in the future? Yes? | Then do it. | | If "this" means hiring a ton of people that you _might_ | have to let go in the future, then so be it. That 's how | all companies operate, all the time. | | The difference here is that the time between hiring and | layoffs has compressed, and the bets that companies make | are shorter term.. Hire thousands of people, drive | massive quarterly profits for a while, then let a bunch | of them go. Thank you for your service. | | This is how a lot of existing industries work already.. | Warehouse/factory work, seasonal work like construction | and farming/fishing.. That's why those industries have | unions too, because if this becomes a repeating pattern, | the average worker suffers from poor job security and | constant upheaval for the sake of corporate profits. | | I said this in the discussion around Shopify's layoffs as | well: as a worker in tech looking for a job, you need to | start thinking about how much your role contributes to | the bottom line, and also about the timing of your | hiring. | | If you are hired during rapid growth, then assume your | job security is much lower, because your employer is | making a bet, as opposed to planning for a calculated and | safe long term expansion. | itsoktocry wrote: | > _Who predicted this?_ | | Every investor who continued to buy stock in these companies | as they doubled in price, along with companies like Peloton, | Zoom, Carvana. | | The laptop class genuinely believed we'd never do anything | in-person again. | [deleted] | philod wrote: | Most large fast going tech companies "predicited" this but | that doesn't mean they really believed it. The alternative at | the time was to say..."we grew 100% in the last two years but | with covid restrictions limiting etc wr think that growth | will be more like 80% and revenue down x%" that would have | sent massive shocks to investors and stocks would have | dropped overnight as companies like Meta had been setting a | long precedent of "beat and raise" with their earnings calls. | Essentially everyone was hoping it would continue as they | didn't want to see equity and comp and valuations down. | What's funny is that it all happened anyway over the course | of the year. Believe me from first hand experience there were | many people in these companies raising flags late last year | that it can't continue but were essentially ignored. Hope is | not a strategy! | [deleted] | Aeolun wrote: | All the big tech companies that are now laying people off? | | I mean, they probably believed what they wanted to believe, | but that's a very human failing. | dan-robertson wrote: | That wasn't my memory from early 2022. It seemed like much of | the economy today was impacted by the Ukraine war. But maybe | that's just coincidence. Lots of people also felt that tech | companies were overvalued. | | But my memory may be playing tricks on me. | jryhjythtr wrote: | The two will be forever conflated (and there's an excellent | argument that Putin made his move on new territory while | the rest of the world had weakened itself with years of | self-imposed Covid restrictions). However, literally | shutting down globe-sized sectors of the economy for months | or years at a time, with no notice, to me is obviously the | biggest cause of what we see now (and what is to come). | | Exactly how does the war in Ukraine economically affect, | for example, the US? | acdha wrote: | > the rest of the world had weakened itself with years of | self-imposed Covid restrictions | | This is a pretty bold political statement: it's saying | that people weren't worried about getting sick and that | the millions of people who died, had long-term illness, | or were caring for their relatives weren't contributing | to the economy. Things like the business owners | complaining that retail sales were down even after they | got exactly what they asked for suggests that's not the | case. | | > literally shutting down globe-sized sectors of the | economy for months or years at a time, with no notice | | Can you give details on where you believe this happened? | jryhjythtr wrote: | >the millions of people who died, had long-term illness, | or were caring for their relatives weren't contributing | to the economy. | | They were dominated (at least by the publicly-available | figures here in the UK) by retired folks. No, in a purely | pragmatic sense, they don't contribute much to the | economy, especially as any wealth they do have gets | immediately re-distributed on death anyway. | | If we were talking about some terrible disease (like | Smallpox, for example), where the young and old alike | died in huge numbers, then the argument would be | different. | | >Can you give details on where you believe this happened? | | Are you kidding me? Maritime shipping and aviation are | two obvious examples. | acdha wrote: | First, while the death rates were highest among the | oldest people there are still a ton of people who were | not close to death anyway. It's also not true that losing | older people is necessarily neutral - economies do better | when money circulates, not when it's tied up in a lump | sum going into someone's retirement account. | | Note also that I mentioned people who were impacted but | not killed. Again, there are millions of people in prime | economic years who became substantially less productive - | and someone in their 20s or 30s might be missing key | career steps which will lock in much of that permanently. | Similarly, there are millions of people who stopped | working or started working less to care for the previous | groups. All of those have a significant economic impact. | | Finally, maritime shipping wasn't shut down, certainly | not for "years". It was significantly disrupted by the | disease but that wasn't a policy choice. | | Air travel (notably not cargo) was restricted for months, | not years at the global scale, but it also bounced back | quickly thanks to heavy government support in most | countries. I don't think it would be enough to explain | the economy on its own as a lot of business went virtual | and people found domestic outlets for the money they'd | have spent on international travel. | | Finally, I'm not saying that there was absolutely no | impact from policy but rather that some people have had a | tendency to blame policy more than the actual disease, or | ignore the benefits from those choices. We saw this a lot | with groups like restaurant owners where lifting safety | measures didn't improve business as much as they'd hoped | because many of their customers didn't want to engage in | high-risk activities, or especially when their outspoken | political positions drove people to competitors. In many | ways this is natural: people want to believe things could | have been better by choice because then they can imagine | it being better if they were in charge. | umanwizard wrote: | > Maritime shipping and aviation are two obvious | examples. | | Also, most forms of non-screen entertainment (bars, | restaurants, sports, theaters, etc.) | throwaway2037 wrote: | Cruise ships as well. | benjaminwootton wrote: | Agreed. It was blatantly obvious that the cure was worse | than the disease, and that at best the restrictions could | just kick the can down the road a while. It was also | covered up by printing cash at enormous scale. | | Now when the economy starts bleeding, supply chains | struggle and inflation moons, people try and pin it on | Putin and deny they ever supported it. | | It's cognitive dissonance at best? incredible dishonesty | at worst. | jryhjythtr wrote: | It'll be like the wars in Iraq and Libya. Vitally | important at the time, but you can't find anyone now who | will say they supported them. | | Then again, how can you blame people? Most people do what | they are told, and the person who glared at you last year | for breaking some Covid rule or the other could equally | likely have a conversation with you today about some | horrible outcome they've had thanks to Covid | restrictions, and never link the two. | implements wrote: | > It was blatantly obvious that the cure was worse than | the disease, | | That's not how I remember it - governments locked down to | prevent health systems collapse while a vaccine was | created, tested and scaled for mass production. After | successful vaccine deployment restrictions were lifted. | jryhjythtr wrote: | Three huge assumptions here - | | "health system collapse" was the inevitable outcome of | any other approach to dealing with Covid. | | "health system collapse" is worse than all of the other | present and future side-effects, including the effects of | denying healthcare to huge numbers of people over the | past 2.5 years. | | "health system collapse" didn't happen anyway. At least | where I am (UK), it's increasingly clear that our | response to Covid has blown open all of the existing | cracks, and it's hard to say that we "saved" the NHS. | benjaminwootton wrote: | 3 weeks for me to get a remote GP appointment right now. | This will be killing more people than Covid ever did, so | we are in the red before we even get onto anything else. | okaram wrote: | It wasn't blatantly obvious that the cure was worse than | the disease, especially because it wasn't. | | There is room to disagree on how much and for how long we | should have distanced, and which government interventions | were more useful, but I (and most people?) think doing | nothing would have been much worse. | 22SAS wrote: | They should blame Xi. All these economic decisions | wouldn't have happened had there been no COVID. The | Chinese government deliberately released this lab-made | bioweapon/virus, to see how it would negatively impact | most of the world. From economies struggling, to people | getting polarized and more divided, and supply chains | getting affected, their move has been a massive | intelligence success for them. | | If anything, the western world needs to take a lot of | strict action against the Chinese and also the tons of | CCP sympathizers in their countries. | jryhjythtr wrote: | About the only upside is that China seems to have taken a | big dose of their own poison. | Nimitz14 wrote: | Gas prices. I'm perplexed that you somehow missed the | connection. | jryhjythtr wrote: | How did the US screw up being the world's biggest | producer of natural gas, and being energy independent? | Nimitz14 wrote: | Gas as in fuel. Are you being deliberately dense? | | Anyways you're changing the topic now. Glad I could help | you understand how the ukraine war affected the US | economy. Good day. | jryhjythtr wrote: | >Are you being deliberately dense? | | No, I'm not from the US, so the colloquial usage of "gas" | as "fuel for cars" slipped my mind. | | The US is also a net exporter of crude oil, so all I've | said so far still applies. | | How has the Ukraine war affected gasoline prices? Are you | just talking about the state you live in, or US-wide? | galangalalgol wrote: | The US has given over $8B in aid. Also natural gas prices | are going to hurt this winter. Gasoline prices hurt this | summer, both directly and in transport costs. | nradov wrote: | Only a fraction of that $8B in aid was direct cash | payments to Ukraine. Much of it went to US defense | contractors and was recycled into the domestic economy. | Higher fossil fuel prices hurt US consumers, but most of | that value is flowing to US energy companies and | ultimately to US investors. The vast majority of fossil | fuels burned here are also extracted and refined here; we | only import a little. | bombcar wrote: | $8 billion comes out to $25 per person in the US. It's | nothing compared to anything. | | Heck, it's only four powerballs from last weekend. | varjag wrote: | The US have been spending $20B1 per year on air | conditioning for troops in Afghanistan. | | 12011 figure | ksala_ wrote: | Completely unrelated to the thread, but I had to google | this. This seems to be the source | https://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137414737/among-the-costs- | of-... | | Reading the notes at the bottom, it seems like the number | might be somewhat realistic, but should really be called | the cost of shipping fuel and securing it to Afghanistan, | some of which was probably used for aircon. | varjag wrote: | My point is $8B in 2022 money for defeating Russia in | field is deal of the century. | nibbleshifter wrote: | Bargain basement prices! | ksala_ wrote: | Yes, I agree, I don't think that $8B is a lot of money | for the US, especially in the military context. I was | just surprised at the number and shared some back story. | jryhjythtr wrote: | >The US has given over $8B in aid | | That's throwaway change, compared to the amount spent on | Covid. | | >Also natural gas prices are going to hurt this winter. | | The US is the world's biggest producer of natural gas, at | least while fracking is still largely permitted. | throwaway2037 wrote: | I was surprised when I read this part: <<The US is the | world's biggest producer of natural gas>> | | Then, I checked Google. Yep, you are right: | https://www.worldometers.info/gas/gas-production-by- | country/ | | In my mind, I was mixed up with world's largest | _exporters_. Last I knew, it was a race between Qatar and | Australia. But wrong again! It is Russia: https://en.wiki | pedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_g... | seydor wrote: | the % of workers fired is also the same everywhere. As if a | single nefarious overlord is running the Valley | twawaaay wrote: | I do not believe the statement. | | Whatever the reasons were (and we can probably guess some of | those), they probably spent significant effort to picture it in | the most palatable way possible. | | My take would be: | | * They hired a lot of people in a short time and with this | probably their productivity fell a lot. They want to remove | ballast and hopefully improve average productivity. | | * They are scared about falling share price. A lot of Meta | employees get significant part of their comp in form of shares | and so falling share price will mean their best people are | going to start to leave or they will have to increase their | comp considerably. So they are looking to appease investors by | cutting costs. | | * They are loosing users and expect to start loosing ad | revenue. Having on idea how to improve their revenue the only | way out to stay in the game for longer is to start cutting | costs more aggresively. | | * They have no idea what to do with all those people they have | hired because their CEO is doing something else at the moment. | And (in my experience, not based on facts) the culture at Meta | is very likely that everybody is looking up to CEO or nothing | happens. | itsoktocry wrote: | > _expect to start loosing ad revenue_ | | They are already bleeding ad revenue, badly. | | But yeah, agree with you overall. In summary, they were flush | with money for a while, invested and hired like crazy, | couldn't grow revenue and productivity and are now shedding | costs. | | We have to remember that these companies weren't affected by | layoffs at the start of the pandemic; in fact, the opposite. | They boomed. | chrisseaton wrote: | Share value is down everywhere. Where would people move to | for better compensation? | Cthulhu_ wrote: | Smaller / newer companies with investment money to burn who | expect results. Although I can imagine investors are | slowing down a bit as well - actually they have done so I | believe for the past half decade or so. | purpleflame1257 wrote: | A place with more TC in cash. | chrisseaton wrote: | More than Facebook? | missedthecue wrote: | Does Netflix have 11,000 open positions? | twawaaay wrote: | I am talking _best_ employees. People who will find good | job no matter what. People you need to keep because they | are actually the ones who make the show going. | | You got hired thinking you will get some amount of money | (salary + shares) now those shares are worth little even | before they got vested. | | So you cut your loss and get hired at some other place that | will give you more of your comp in form of salary than | shares because you feel burned. | sokoloff wrote: | If share value is down everywhere, it's in many employees' | best interests to reset their grants at another company (at | a lower grant price). | glenngillen wrote: | Many large companies have pretty rigid comp review | processes and cycles. If you're a high performing employee | who got a stock refresh earlier this year there's a good | chance you're down 50% or more at many companies. Switch | companies and there's a chance you'll get a new grant for | the original gross value but at the new lower share price. | | If your belief that it's macro trends rather than | individual company performance that's depressing share | value it could be a very profitable time to change roles | (assuming you can, obviously there's also an influx of | people looking for work in the past few weeks). | dontwatchthis wrote: | well it could be all of the above....what i find odd is that | the Facebook CEO already knew that demand for ad revenue | would already drop in 2023 and they were still hiring up | untill now....they should have started cutting costs earlier | bombcar wrote: | You don't want to be the first to pull back in these | situations as it makes you look weak. | | Stripe and Twitter took a lot of heat off of Meta; if they | had done this in March it'd be a whole different story. | confidantlake wrote: | I interviewed with Meta in the summer and they cancelled my | onsite interview. So even back then they had already slowed | their hiring. | colinmhayes wrote: | They claimed their monthly, daily, and total engagement are | all up in this quarters earnings. Ads shown up 17% price per | ad down 18%. Doesn't seem like losing users. | arbitrary_name wrote: | The same HR/layoff consultants were used by both leadership | teams, i believe. | gz5 wrote: | Corporate-speak aside, Meta and Stripe couldn't be more | different: | | + Meta is funding a new business. Stripe is funding expansion | of current business. | | + On existing revenue, Meta has new threats which had little to | do with C19 (Apple's changes, Tiktok etc competition, ad | budgets moving to influencers). Although Stripe is not public | (so less numbers to analyze), it doesn't seem like they have | similar pressures on revenue. | | + The main similarity is they are both subject to the impacts | of inflation and rising interest rates. However, that is true | for almost every large company right now. | pyb wrote: | This layoff almost sounds like an opportunistic decision, | rather than something that was planned long in advance. | rtanks wrote: | Agree | thomasmarcelis wrote: | Probably same PR company or law firm | pera wrote: | I wonder why the two biggest recent layoffs were by the two | largest (US-based) social networks, is this the end of an era? | And where is all that advertisement money going now? | | As a side note, it's crazy to think that Meta stocks are | currently -75% from its peak last year. | Ragnarokk wrote: | I think it was mostly a bubble and it finally has popped. The | big social networks were funded blindly because they were | growing on the market. But of course it wouldn't be eternal | nemo44x wrote: | Probably not. Some companies grew too fast and are now | correcting. Nothing goes straight up or down. It will be tight | for awhile though. | weatherlite wrote: | The ios privacy change hurt Meta but honestly most financial | reports I've seen from tech (Alphabet, Amazon etc) don't look | great. It has to do with the macro environment we're in. Which | tech stocks had a stellar year? Not that many. | nelsonic wrote: | Facebook ("Meta") made $46.7 Billion in Profit in 2021. They have | $42 Billion in cash. If the average engineer is paid $150k then | these 11k people would cost the company 150,000 x 11,000 = | 1,650,000,000 ($1.6 Billion/year) Mark Zuckerberg could _easily_ | afford to keep these people employed and focus their efforts | towards improving the safety of the platform e.g: stopping Human | Trafficking, Drug Dealing and Child Abuse all documented | extensively in the Facebook Papers. They are failing to protect | the most vulnerable people in society while sitting on a | _mountain_ of cash. Shame on you Mark. | Sakos wrote: | I'm not really sure what the point of the layoffs here are. Are | they realizing that they had no idea how to effectively put | 11.000 people to work? What are they trying to achieve? | pm90 wrote: | Its been mentioned in other places but to summarize: | | * this is a cost cutting measure and not primarily driven by | the need to cull "low performing" employees. | | * point of the company is not to guarantee employment or even | keep the lights on; its to maximize the stock price (at least | according to the prevailing worldview, which I disagree | with). Investors use the stock price as a proxy for their | belief in a company's future. If the stock price is high, | company invests and expands, if its low, it contracts until | the investors/markets believe it can generate value. | | * layoffs scare the employees that remain into working | harder. The sad truth is that unless you're really | exceptional, this doesn't really matter. But they will likely | see a productivity boost for a little while. Again, this is | pretty short term. | Sakos wrote: | Which seems bizarre to me. Cutting costs just leads to | hollowing out your expertise and institutional knowledge | (see Intel) to the point where it eventually becomes far | more difficult or even impossible to grow. This is the time | to reorganize, restrategize, reprioritize and solve long- | standing cultural/organisational issues, not fire people | who could potentially help the company through tough times. | | Oh well. It's FB, I'm okay with it if they sink the ship. | [deleted] | AnonC wrote: | If Mark Zuckerberg had any shame at all, he wouldn't be around | with Meta and all the companies it owns/runs. But he has good | company among many other CEOs who'd rather cut the workforce | and earn more bonuses for themselves. | jrochkind1 wrote: | When doing "how much staff costs" calculations, you typically | have to add on ~30-50% on top of salary for employer's share of | taxes, and benefits (health insurance in USA is very non- | trivial), and other assorted overhead. | | But your point stands. | pb7 wrote: | >If the average engineer is paid $150k | | Haha. | | It's more like twice this, with another ~50% in overhead costs | like healthcare, payroll taxes, real estate, etc. | rbanffy wrote: | They have employees outside Silicon Valley | mgraczyk wrote: | Those engineers still make much more than this. | pb7 wrote: | They don't have enough and the compensation isn't low | enough to bring down the average anywhere near this. Within | the US, only base salary is adjusted up to 10-15% which is | less than 10% of total comp. Internationally they pay | significantly higher than local labor market, in all | looking similar to US numbers. | rejor121 wrote: | A lot of people are spouting doom and gloom for the entire | industry, but I feel like Facebook had this coming. Especially | since they lost billions in Meta. | | It seems to me that there are a lot of software jobs out there, | and companies can't seem to find enough people. But that said, | I'm sure the story is probably different in Silicon Valley | [deleted] | d1algo wrote: | Recruiters and hiring companies : | | In this trying times as founder of https://sunnyjobs.d1algo.com/ | I am happy to offer 5 free job postings. Just send me a mail at | contact.d1algo@gmail.com mentioning your username & job posting | links. You can use all the ATS features including setting up | tests , track applicants and jobs etc. | nixcraft wrote: | All social media companies hire too many folks and now cutting | expenses to meet their target for shareholders. Yet, only Twitter | seems to get lots of backslashes compared to other FANGS. Why? I | wonder if this relates to Elon Musks' ongoing outbursts on | Twitter regarding his political and other conservative views. I | believe I answered my own questions. Ha! | Bilal_io wrote: | I don't think you're looking at this objectively. The way Musk | handled the layoffs was reckless and without much thought other | than "reduce cost immediately", the proof is they backtracked | and tried to hire people back after realizing what a poopy mess | they've created. That alone is ridiculous and warrants the | backlash Musk/Twitter received. | | From the looks of it, Zuckerberg handled this better than what | anyone was expecting. Talk about under promising and over | delivering | nikau wrote: | Musks was the "press conference outside 4 seasons | landscaping" equivalent | habinero wrote: | I don't think you understand how many people it takes to run a | large company. | | Turns out Elon doesn't either lol. Also, he's not a | conservative. | nikau wrote: | > Also, he's not a conservative | | Yeah he's a regular old leftie | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_and_unions | wooger wrote: | You think twitter is in FAANG? | nathan_gold wrote: | Why is this identical to Stripe's layoff letter | https://stripe.com/en-ca/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons...? | bizzodes wrote: | Imagine complying with the covid vaccine mandates against what | you otherwise would have done, and then you get laid off anyway. | What a gut punch. | achow wrote: | > _We've shifted more of our resources onto a smaller number of | high priority growth areas -- like our AI discovery engine, our | ads and business platforms, and our long-term vision for the | metaverse._ | | Conviction for Metaverse is unwavering. Hope some good comes out | of it in future. | transfire wrote: | Honestly I don't have any idea where this metaverse thing is or | how to get to it. | keewee7 wrote: | Facebook has become the _local_ town square on the Internet. | Thousands of active local groups is something that other social | networks will have a hard time replicating. Marketplace is | another feature that takes advantage of Facebook having a strong | local presence, everywhere. | | Why did they pivot towards VR and metaverse when Facebook's | strength is being the "Localverse"? | SkyPuncher wrote: | The Localverse isn't defendable in anyway. People don't use | Facebook pages/groups because it's "Facebook". They use it | because it's adjacent to something else they do. | polio wrote: | They are indeed investing into groups, but ultimately the | marginal gain there is marginal. The metaverse stuff also | complements (i.e. it isn't a complete pivoting away from | traditional social networking) all of the other connectivity | (e.g. imagine a unique and persistent VRChat instance per | group; you can have a meta-localverse) but also gives Meta its | own platform. Mark is obviously incredibly pissed at the amount | of leverage Apple has over him. | fullshark wrote: | Because FB missed owning the smartphone platform with their FB | phone (apple + google), and so they want to own the next one in | their opinion (VR-Oculus). | system2 wrote: | They do own WhatsApp though. | optymizer wrote: | They filled the town square, and growth is the primary metric, | so they decided to announce a new and exciting area to grow in. | erikpukinskis wrote: | So was Yahoo Groups at one time. | Andrew_nenakhov wrote: | No they aren't. Because of [censored] algorithmic timeline you | only see posts Facebook decided are relevant for you, and | usually they aren't the ones you are most interested to see. | andyjohnson0 wrote: | > I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that. | | As always with these things, I wonder what taking responsibility | actually means in practice. | | Businesses usually try to find ways to correct for major failures | in decision making. In the case of Zuck, given his ownership, | does anything actually happen or change? I'm sure his net worth | has been reduced by changes to Meta's share price, but he was a | multi-billionaire before and he still is now. Is that it? | gustavorg wrote: | > I wonder what taking responsibility actually means in | practice. | | "Some of you May Die, But it's a Sacrifice I am Willing to | Make" - Lord Farquaad | dolmen wrote: | Best quote. | lazide wrote: | He lost untold billions of dollars (admittedly off his giant | pile of even more untold billions of dollars). | | He's the primary controlling shareholder and defacto owner. | What other kind of accountability would make any sense at all? | Even if he fired himself, he'd either have to shut the company | down, or find someone to replace him and manage them, which | makes him their boss. | | Edit: to correct dumb statement around share ownership. But you | know what I meant. | [deleted] | spacemadness wrote: | Apparently taking responsibility means lessening the impact by | releasing this news alongside election results so it is | somewhat buried. | varsketiz wrote: | He is paying a pretty decent severance package for the US as | far as I understand. | [deleted] | [deleted] | BurningFrog wrote: | It just means he accepts the blame, and holds no one else | responsible. | | Do people want him to fire himself to show he means it, or | what? | khyryk wrote: | People have a problem with it because it's a string of words | without meaning. Better to leave it out than to sully modern | language further with meaningless gibberish that looks like | language. | nh23423fefe wrote: | Pretending not to understand doesn't mean the speaker was | unclear. | Aeolun wrote: | > Businesses usually try to find ways to correct for major | failures in decision making. | | Which eventually leads to complete stagnation and nobody being | willing and/or able to make a decision. | Yhippa wrote: | Think about it this way. If I, for example, did a series of | activities that led to 13% of my division's business being | impacted adversely, I'm almost assuredly getting fired. | | When you go higher up the food chain, the same thing happens. | When the people at the very top do something like that, does | the same happen? Sometimes. Depends on who's on the BoD I | guess. | paulcole wrote: | What _would_ him taking responsibility in practice look like to | you? | 0x445442 wrote: | Has he actually admitted how he failed in his | responsibilities? I have not followed the FB fall closely but | from the outside there appears to be some dubious strategic | decisions at work. It would be interesting to hear him | elaborate on the situation with something like "I failed to | see how precarious it was to be at the mercy of Google and | Apple for our core ad business". Or, "looking back, it was a | mistake to not get into cloud computing for a more | diversified revenue stream". | ausudhz wrote: | You believe that a company with plenty of privacy concerns | and/or user data handling would've been successful on | cloud? | micromacrofoot wrote: | sacrificing some personal wealth for the good of the people | that were affected | patentatt wrote: | Yeah, he could easily bankroll a 36 month severance package | or something similar. Like "sorry I fucked you right at the | onset of a recession, here's a pile of cash to help you | weather the storm." That would be actually taking | responsibility | mbesto wrote: | He lost $90B. I'm not sympathizing with Zuck, but what | you're suggesting literally happened. | bombcar wrote: | But he wasn't _punished_ - people demand _blood_ and | blood can only be given non-voluntarily. | s1artibartfast wrote: | He was punished by the market. People want more blood | than that and some people will literally never be | satisfied | nonameiguess wrote: | If the issue is his moonshot bets on AI research and | metaverse that are not expected to immediately payout hurt | the company by having too much headcount not contributing to | short-term revenue, and core products can't support that, | then he made a bad strategic decision, and the appropriate | way to take responsibility for that is to remove the unique | voting structure so that Mark is no longer the sole person | capable of deciding the company's future strategy. | | But either way, it's still inevitable that a change in | strategy would entail elimination of some of that headcount. | davidcbc wrote: | Facing repercussions on the level of those he's laying off. | If he's responsible he should be the first one out the door. | mensetmanusman wrote: | That's impossible because he is already profoundly rich. | There is no way to simulate the hardship without stealing | what is in the bank. | davidcbc wrote: | Now we're talkin' | Fordec wrote: | Or rather the person who is responsible should go before | those who are not and have been doing their job. | | If a middle manager was responsible for a bad decision, | their head would be on a spike. But it's the chief | executive officer, so he gets a pass, if only because he's | in the position of power. | andyjohnson0 wrote: | Good question. I don't know the answer. And that points to | the problem, really. In rhe world as ut is, there isnt really | a way to realistically imagine a CEO doing anything | meaningful to take responsibility for a self-admitted error | lile this. | | If, just for the sake of argument, I said he should resign or | compensate the affected people out of his own pocket, I'm | fairly sure that people here would think I was being naive. | People here are already saying that corporate leaders wouldnt | take decisions if they had to be held responsible for the | outcomes. | | So we end-up with a bunch of people who everyone knows (a) | are not responsible for mistakes, and (b) are tacitly | understood to be able to make statements that habe no | meaning. In other words, lies. | | And thus the domain of trust becomes smaller and more | fractured. | s1artibartfast wrote: | I think people who say it's meaningless are wrong. | | Saying you take responsibility is about clearing the | workers of fault, it's not about thing you will reform or | somehow suffer more than they will. | | He could go out there and say it's not my responsibility, | it is the workers fault. They underperformed. Most CEOs | don't want to do that | Yhippa wrote: | If I hired someone and they made the value of the company | go down 73% in one year, I would probably fire them. | falcolas wrote: | Taking a salary cut. Loosing unvested options. Fewer grants | going forward. | | Financial penalties that incentivize him to not fuck up | again. | roflyear wrote: | Homie this isn't a fuck up. It's what shareholders want and | it is awful. | | These 11k employees are not a threat to facebooks | existence. Not even close. If that was the case FB stock | would be tanking. | | FB is pulling in record profits. They just are getting a | little nervous and they are laying people off. It is | ridiculous. | falcolas wrote: | I don't necessarily disagree with you, and we will see | FB's stock bumping back up again now that Zuck's make the | "hard decision" to lay off employees. | roflyear wrote: | Yeah. Up 7%! when the SPY is down 1%. Wild. | disgruntledphd2 wrote: | To be fair, up till this point, Metas PE ratio was half | that of Google. | [deleted] | francisofascii wrote: | To be fair, his net worth fell by $70+ billion. So that | sounds like a financial penalty to me. | [deleted] | falcolas wrote: | A reduction in net worth (i.e. stock price dropping) is a | pretty terrible penalty, because a) it doesn't actually | reflect upon the CEO's successes or failures, and b) | because any bump in Meta's stock price will bring that | net worth right back. And, usually, doing a mass layoff | will do exactly that. | | EDIT: Sure enough, Meta's stock is up ~17% since a week | ago. | eru wrote: | > And, usually, doing a mass layoff will do exactly that. | | That tells you that companies have far too few mass | layoffs. | falcolas wrote: | Only if your goal is short-term profits, and not long | term sustainability. | jfdbcv wrote: | Zuckerberg takes a $1 salary and no equity compensation. | lovich wrote: | Neat how all his property was just donated to him by | adoring fans then. Obviously there's no way he's | discovered to wield his vast wealth | akavi wrote: | ...he starts the company. Afaik, he's never taken _any_ | additional compensation beyond his ownership share, that | came about because... he started the company. | lovich wrote: | So the multiple houses? The land in Hawaii where he tried | to just take from the current owners? All that was part | of the company? Pretending like he just owns the company | and hasn't taken compensation anywhere cause he has a 1 | dollar a year salary is a a child like understanding of | how billionaires leverage their wealth | falcolas wrote: | I'm certain there are people smarter than I who could | come up with an appropriate penalty. Quite a few on | Meta's board, no doubt. | | Put him on a PIP with a mentor? :D | triceratops wrote: | Resigning. | [deleted] | smsm42 wrote: | I'd say yeah, that's pretty much it. In any case, what'd you | expect? He's not giving up the control of the company. He made | a mistake, yes - but there's no obligation for anybody who | makes a mistake to give up everything and never have any | responsibility again. So what else is there? | adamzerner wrote: | I think a Bayesian perspective is helpful here. 1) How likely | is it that Zuck makes that statement if he feels like he is | responsible? 2) How likely is it if he doesn't feel | responsible? I think the answers to those questions are quite | similar, in which case hearing the statement doesn't actually | tell us much. | Enginerrrd wrote: | Just to elaborate on this since I had to think about it and I | might save someone else the effort: | | Let M = Makes the statement Let R = Feels Responsible | Notation: ~R = Not R | | Answering OP's questions 1 & 2: I think it's safe to assume | P(M|R) = P(M|~R) = 1 So P(M) = 1 | | So Bayes' theorem simplifies as follows: P(R|M) = | P(M|R)P(R)/PM) = P(R) | | Thus, OP's point is that the statement tells us essentially | nothing about the probability he actually feels responsible | or empathetic, and I agree. | jsmith45 wrote: | To use Bayes to update here, you must determine the | conditional probabilities as they were before you knew that | M occurred, and could thus update to P(M)=1. If one did not | already know that M happened then one certainly could not | say `P(M|R) = P(M|~R) = 1`. One might be able to claim | `P(M|R) = P(M|~R) = P(M)`, which is just saying the events | are independent. | | Certainly with a prior that the events are independent, | then you won't be able to update your probability of R by | knowing that M did happen, any more than knowing last | nights lotto numbers would probability of R. | | In reality, things are even worse, as assuming independence | is not fully reasonable, so you will end up with | uncertainly about how or if the variables relate. One could | assume some form of meta probability distribution of | various ways the variables could relate, but then direct | application of Bayes formula not feasible. You would still | in that scenario not be learning much if anything useful | about P(R). | abstractmath wrote: | But both of your assumptions imply the conclusion, so the | math doesn't actually seem helpful at all. | adamzerner wrote: | I disagree. The question at hand is how we should update | our beliefs in response to the evidence of Zuck making | the statement. Given the priors of P(M|R) and P(M|~R), it | tells us that we shouldn't really update. Different | priors would lead to a different update. | | Sometimes this sort of thing happens where our priors | don't allow for a belief update in response to evidence. | For example, does me writing this comment change your | best guess as to whether my favorite color is blue? That | depends on what you think of P(favorite color blue | | comment) and P(favorite color blue | ~comment). Both of | those are probably the same right? If so, my comment | doesn't allow you to update. | | This excerpt from http://www.hpmor.com/chapter/20 is | relevant: Professor Quirrell looked at | Harry. "Mr. Potter," he said solemnly, with only a slight | grin, "a word of advice. There is such a thing as a | performance which is too perfect. Real people who have | just been beaten and humiliated for fifteen minutes do | not stand up and graciously forgive their enemies. It is | the sort of thing you do when you're trying to convince | everyone you're not Dark, not -" "I can't | believe this! You can't have every possible observation | confirm your theory! " "And that was a trifle | too much indignation." "What on Earth do I | have to do to convince you? " "To convince me | that you harbor no ambitions of becoming a Dark Lord?" | said Professor Quirrell, now looking outright amused. "I | suppose you could just raise your right hand." | "What?" Harry said blankly. "But I can raise my right | hand whether or not I -" Harry stopped, feeling rather | stupid. "Indeed," said Professor Quirrell. | "You can just as easily do it either way. There is | nothing you can do to convince me because I would know | that was exactly what you were trying to do. And if we | are to be even more precise, then while I suppose it is | barely possible that perfectly good people exist even | though I have never met one, it is nonetheless improbable | that someone would be beaten for fifteen minutes and then | stand up and feel a great surge of kindly forgiveness for | his attackers. On the other hand it is less improbable | that a young child would imagine this as the role to play | in order to convince his teacher and classmates that he | is not the next Dark Lord. The import of an act lies not | in what that act resembles on the surface, Mr. Potter, | but in the states of mind which make that act more or | less probable." Harry blinked. He'd just had | the dichotomy between the representativeness heuristic | and the Bayesian definition of evidence explained to him | by a wizard. | abstractmath wrote: | The interesting and important question is what are the | priors. | | Since all of the priors here are speculative, there's no | use in pulling out Bayes. | | The outcome given Bayes is the same as the outcome | without Bayes, just a bit noisier ;) | svnt wrote: | You've identified the problem with many Bayesian | approaches, not just this one. Without sufficient data to | make the probabilities accurate, it just shifts the | uncertainty to the process of choosing probabilities. | adamzerner wrote: | Yes, thank you! I appreciate that. I should have elaborated | in my OP. | | https://arbital.com/p/bayes_rule/ has some great follow up | info. | jimbokun wrote: | Is there a better way to say this? | | I think the meaning is pretty clearly "Many of you are being | let go not because of poor performance on your part, but bad | decisions on my part." | | It's acknowledging fault. | adrianmsmith wrote: | I thought this | https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1590304422735015936 was | a good explanation: | | > What this means is they don't blame outside factors. Compare | this w layoffs where the CEO says this is due to "the economy" | "the macro climate", suggesting they did everything right. When | someone says they take accountability, it means it was their | poor decisions - that could have/should have been better - that | led to this. You know who to blame. | sausagefeet wrote: | This is a pretty poor take, IMO. I have not seen any | difference in results of a CEO who "takes responsibility" vs | "blames outside factors". Taking responsibility seems to be a | cheap way to come off as a better person without actually | doing anything differently. | beambot wrote: | Are "results" the only thing that matter to you? | | Let's say you have two leaders in this situation. #1 says | "The macro economic climate is bad, so we're laying people | off." #2 says "I made a mistake; this was my fault." All | other things equal, I know which one I'd prefer to work | with... How a leader comports themselves is just as | important as their results -- especially in bad times. | Yhippa wrote: | I want to hear both. "The macro environment is bad, and | we never baked that into any of our forecasts, which we | should have. I take full responsibility for not doing | that." | sausagefeet wrote: | I don't really understand your counter. It costs an | executive nothing to write those words down. What do you | think should matter to me? | pb7 wrote: | Does it get tiring being this cynical all the time? Admit | it, nothing he could have said would have satisfied folks | like you. | | This was a tactful announcement and a generous severance | after providing a job with pay and benefits in the top 0.1% | for potentially many years. | Domenic_S wrote: | True, nothing he could have _said_ would satisfy. But he | is in a unique position to render stunning aid to those | displaced. The severance is fine, not totally unusual for | a company that isn 't going under. | sausagefeet wrote: | I am making a much more narrow point than you're | interpreting it. The Twitter thread is claiming people | who "take responsibility" are somehow superior to those | who don't. I am saying I see no evidence to believe that. | Talk is cheap. | | My personal belief is that I would like to see discussion | of the system that gets us to the point of mass layoffs. | As rich as Zuck or Musk or whoever is, they are still | close to gears in the system than orchestrators, so we | should probably have a discussion about if this situation | is something we could modify the system to prevent, and | if we want to modify the system in that way. | Aperocky wrote: | > somehow superior to those who don't. | | Yes. Accepting responsibility is more preferable to not | accepting it and blaming it on other people/things, | period. | apineda wrote: | I understand this take but it seems to assume that people | and systems aren't flawed. | sausagefeet wrote: | My take assumes that? I don't think it does. My point is | simply that I don't see any evidence to say that someone | who makes that claim is somehow better than someone that | blames the environment. It's very easy to wrote those | words down. | jbaczuk wrote: | Wow, people can find a way to complain about anything. The | severance benefits are insanely generous. Nobody takes a job | thinking that it will be permanent, or is that a thing now? | Would it have been better if he blamed the layoffs on the | market? Maybe it's just a glass half empty kind of thing. | arbitrage wrote: | > Nobody takes a job thinking that it will be permanent, or | is that a thing now? | | Does everybody take a job expecting to leave it? I don't | think that is the case. | drc500free wrote: | Everyone in tech whose job is a bet on the future success | of a product should expect to leave it. Expecting 100% of | products to have 100% success in 100% of economic | environments is a bit naive. | epolanski wrote: | Just to point out Facebook is a success and is still | making insane profits every single day. | | They aren't losing money or posting losses. | miiiiiike wrote: | > As always with these things, I wonder what taking | responsibility actually means in practice. | | Remember a few years ago when people were asking "Why can't | people just say they made a mistake and own up to it instead of | shifting blame?" Now that people are taking responsibility for | mistakes publicly the response is "Yes, but what does that | mean?" | | Taking responsibility means just that. It means saying you | fucked up and not blaming others for your failures. It doesn't | mean that self immolation follows soon after. | | I move on from bad breaks pretty quickly but there are few | things that I've held on to. Things that still burn years later | and all of them involve refusals to accept responsibility. | Hearing someone say: "Yep, it was me. I fucked you and I'm | sorry. Here's what I can offer." isn't nothing. | | Layoffs suck but the rate of hiring in big companies wasn't | sustainable. A correction is here. It's temporary, but, it's | real. | | If you've tried to hire outside of FAANG over the past decade | you'd know one thing: FAANG is hoarding talent. Every developer | I've really wanted to hold on to has gone to a big tech | company.. I can't blame them. But, here's the thing, so have | many of the contractors that I didn't end up hiring for very | good reasons. | | These layoff messages, down to the structure and content, all | sound the same because PR people follow best practices just | like everyone else. You wouldn't ask why all Redux or Angular | apps use similar patterns.. They're using patterns, that's what | patterns are for. | hardolaf wrote: | It sounds like you should pay more for developers because we | don't have an issue retaining top talent over in the | financial space. | miiiiiike wrote: | > Financial space | | Real numbers here: $250k for a mid-level UX designer and | $575k (base comp) for an Angular dev. That's expensive. | And, depending on the candidate, not worth it. | | There's a lot of reality outside of FAANG and finance. | warcher wrote: | Nothing short of seppuku streamed live via Oculus will redeem | the honor of a business guy putting his honest level best | effort behind some business things that didn't make as much | money as he hoped. | mongol wrote: | Taking responsibility is more than just admitting | reponsibility. It is also about bearing the consequences. | Such as, if you broke something, you fix it. If you lost | something, you pay up to replace it. Or similar. A manager | usually can't fix a problem themselves though. But unless | they pay a cost for their mistakes, they are not really | taking responsibility. Then they just pay lip service to the | word. | musictubes wrote: | I dunno, think Zuck losing however may billions of dollars | of net worth is a pretty stiff consequence. He didn't have | to take responsibility but did. He also literally paid for | the consequences. | ForHackernews wrote: | Is it, though? On paper, I've lost about 35% of my net | worth in the recent market downturn, and it hasn't | affected my life even the slightest. Maybe it's different | if it's your own company and your ego is tied up in the | stock price, but some numbers in a brokerage account | going down doesn't feel like a "stiff consequence" to me. | runarberg wrote: | A billionaire that looses half their net-worth is still a | billionaire. They still hold more money than you can | dream of, they still hold more power then you can | imagine. | | It is not the same for a billionaire to loose money as it | is for you or me. To take a concrete example. Elon Musk | could just close down Twitter right now, and waste away | his 44 bn USD he spent on it. After that squander, he | would still be the richest man on the planet. | smabie wrote: | I mean if you have one billion and you lose half you are | not a billionaire any more? | runarberg wrote: | You are correct on technicality, but you know I was | speaking generally. Even so, a millionaire that still has | 500 millions after they seriously screw up, still has a | ton of money and power. The consequence is still | minuscule next to me loosing half my money. | | A real consequence would be them loosing everything | except 5000 USD | smsm42 wrote: | True, but what should happen instead? If losing lots of | billions won't be enough, what would be? | runarberg wrote: | idk. If this many people were to loose their jobs under | my authority, I think I would at the very least loose my | job. But perhaps there also ought to be a class action | law suite, workers should be able to sue a negligent | business leaders that costs them their jobs, similar how | a shareholder can sue for lost profits. | | But honestly a business leader that screws up so bad, | should probably loose all their wealth, like 100%. | jlawson wrote: | Such a policy would mean that the consequences of a risk | going wrong vastly outweigh the benefits of success. | | That would incentivize extremely risk-averse decisions by | business leaders and lead to society-wide stagnation. The | result would be far more suffering overall. | jahewson wrote: | Right but that's got nothing to with consequences. You're | annoyed that the consequence is... the consequence. | Instead of what? Some abstract punitive ideal? | ff317 wrote: | Responsibility actually is just admitting fault, IMHO. It's | _accountability_ that 's all about paying the cost for the | fault. | JohnAaronNelson wrote: | Thank you. Saying "my bad" is the first step. Fixing it | afterwards is what good people do. | | When someone is accused of a crime, they can plead innocent | or guilty. That is step one. | | There are more steps after that... | s1artibartfast wrote: | For a CEO, the next step is trying to get the business | back on track and restore stock price. I think that his | crazy to think Zuckerberg will not try to do that. | [deleted] | tshaddox wrote: | What specific consequence would you expect him to bear? | It's not like there's any meaningful financial consequence | that he would actually feel. He ain't gonna know what food | insecurity or the specter of medical bankruptcy feels like. | Should he impose some consequence on himself, like he only | gets to spend $1 million on leisure over the next year? | [deleted] | danaris wrote: | Maybe he could see that these people all receive the same | salary they did at Facebook until they can find another | job? No idea how the math would work out on that, but | that seems to be the kind of "taking responsibility" that | would actually be meaningful. | | In a case like this, I don't think the point should be | whether Zuckerberg "would actually feel" a consequence: | it should be whether the _people getting laid off_ --as | in, the ones who were wronged--can feel it. | tshaddox wrote: | I'm not really sure what you mean. If Facebook keeps | paying them indefinitely that's just...not doing a | layoff. | yunwal wrote: | > Maybe he could see that these people all receive the | same salary they did at Facebook until they can find | another job? | | If you mean unlimited, this seems like an unreasonable | expectation. FB employees receive a 4 month severance | package, 4 months _should_ be plenty of time to find a | job for a developer /office worker. | KIFulgore wrote: | I read 4 months of severance, plus 2 weeks per year of | service (likely up to a maximum?), 6 months of health | insurance paid, plus job placement services from a 3rd- | party vendor. | | That's more than fair. | jjulius wrote: | >What specific consequence would you expect him to bear? | | If your decisions lead to 11,000 people losing their | jobs, and you "take responsibility for that", then you | should be 11,001. | miiiiiike wrote: | What do you suggest? | jjulius wrote: | Admit that you either no longer know how to steer the | ship, or you don't know which direction to go, and then | let someone else do it. | ForHackernews wrote: | There was a time when investors/the board could fire a | CEO making terrible decisions (like sinking billions into | white whale VR projects), but no longer. | smsm42 wrote: | AFAIK Facebook ownership has been setup in a way that | nobody can fire Zuck, and investors were fully aware of | it when investing. | Xcelerate wrote: | > There was a time when investors/the board could fire a | CEO making terrible decisions | | This is still by far the most common case, and in fact it | is probably becoming more common because large index | funds have recently increased requirements related to | ownership share structuring | (https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2017/08/05/sp-and-ftse- | russe...). | | In this specific case though, the investors knew that | Zuck had complete control and they decided to invest | regardless, so I do not have any sympathy for their | complaints. | codeisawesome wrote: | Does this mean Facebook wouldn't be allowed to list in | this index if it tried today? | kachnuv_ocasek wrote: | Cutting bonuses, for example? | blsapologist42 wrote: | Zuck already doesn't get any salary or bonus. | bink wrote: | He gets $1 in salary but his total comp is in the tens of | millions. | miiiiiike wrote: | Agreed. If I fuck up and fire people, I'm not taking home | a bonus. | mikkergp wrote: | Wouldn't that mostly impact just the executives and not | Mark Zuckerberg himself? He did seem to get a 23 million | dollar bonus last year, but that's peanuts compared to | his net worth. | hnfong wrote: | Compared with his net worth, or compared with the | reduction in his net worth? | Kaytaro wrote: | Taking responsibility would be putting himself on the | chopping block. I don't blame him for not doing so, but | that's what that word means to me. | Animatronio wrote: | Have you ever quit your job over a mistake you made - say | a bug you introduced in your code? That would also be | taking responsibility. | jjulius wrote: | Life is a lot more nuanced than, "If bug in code, then | lose job". Your hypothetical depends on the severity of | the bug in the code. | | Edit: In this instance, the "bug" led to 11,000 people | losing their jobs. | Kaytaro wrote: | If a mistake I made resulted in thousands of people | losing their jobs who wouldn't consider it? At the very | least I wouldn't lie about "taking responsibility" if I | had no intention. | heavyset_go wrote: | Apologizing means you won't do it again. What steps are being | taken so that the situation being apologized for doesn't | happen again? | P_I_Staker wrote: | I've called this the public apology ritual. In the minds of | the angry mob, the person is irredeemable and should suffer | the worst fate (in our society that might entail being | "canceled"... shunned). | | They don't WANT to forgive them, or provide them with any | redemption. Regardless of the apology, you will use it to | push back further. Look for any hole in the apology to point | to. If that fails, criticize the apology for being too late, | or only to save face... in any case, make sure to proclaim | that you're even more angry after the apology. | | I'm not saying people should never apologize, but I get sick | of this whole routine and all the acting. People will always | just do what they want and it will just be based on a knee | jerk sense of how much they like you. | conductr wrote: | I live in a oil rich area and there's a large economy of well | paid folks attached to it. They all understand it's boom and | bust. They get paid really well when it's booming. Then they | take the L when it's busting. All to say, I think people need | to come to terms with the fact they weren't being paid well due | to their sheer brilliance but due to the risk they assumed by | joining a boom and bust industry. Nobody was lured into a job | at FB under unfair circumstances and I'm sure they're not | exiting on unfair circumstances. Does it suck to be in a | cyclical bust period, does it hurt worse that it's in large | part self inflicted by Zuck. Of course, of course. | pishpash wrote: | On some level it's not even Zuck's fault. It's Jerome | Powell's. It's however up to each individual to plan for what | comes after knowing 2020-2021 was an epic bubble. | lapcat wrote: | Taking responsibility would mean resigning as CEO, for example. | Or altering the voting situation where he has absolute power, | can't be voted out by the board of directors, and thus has no | accountability for his actions and mistakes. | | But just _saying_ that you 're taking responsibility is not | actually taking responsibility. It's empty words. | Enginerrrd wrote: | I don't agree with that take at all. No leader would be able | to learn from mistakes or grow if they had to metaphorically | commit Seppuku every time they made a mistake by resigning or | abdicating their authority. | | Taking responsibility would mean owning the situation as | being caused by you, and critically evaluating your actions | to see if there were different paths you could have taken | given the same information, or if there was other information | that you should have added to your decision-making. | | There are some mistakes so grave and unjustifiable that | resignation would be the appropriate way to take | responsibility for them, but I don't think a round of layoffs | pending an expected economic downturn after excessive growth | qualifies. | mempko wrote: | We got rid of kings in politics for a reason. Businesses | will eventually learn these lessons, even if it's a hundred | years later. | lapcat wrote: | > if they had to metaphorically commit Seppuku every time | they made a mistake | | This is very far from Zuck's first mistake. In any case, | though, I offered an alternative: making himself | accountable to the board of directors. He is not | accountable. He can't be fired, he can only resign. The | fundamental problem is that Zuck gets to define the terms | of his own accountability, which is almost an oxymoron. | r00fus wrote: | And this is one downside to the unitary CEO/COB. | | He, like Vladimir Putin, is only accountable to himself. | | Ideally, society should not allow this type of business | structure if a company is public or a reasonably large | size (say 5k employees). | eru wrote: | Employees can resign, users and customers can go | elsewhere. | lapcat wrote: | How does this relate to the mistake of vastly overhiring? | lovich wrote: | How does it relate to him being accountable? As the user | up thread stated he is literally not accountable because | he answers to no one | lapcat wrote: | > As the user up thread stated | | That was me. | | > he is literally not accountable because he answers to | no one | | Zuck said he wanted to take accountability for overhiring | and then having to do layoffs. So the question is, what | does the theoretical possibility of employees resigning | or users leaving have to do with accountability for | overhiring and layoffs? | lovich wrote: | It has nothing to do with accountability. The reason that | everyone has a visceral response to him saying he | accountable is because we know it is not true | lapcat wrote: | Sorry, I was confused by your reply. I thought you were | arguing with me? Maybe not. But I'm still confused by it. | lovich wrote: | Ah, no. I'm in agreement that he is not being | accountable. I am perhaps taking it farther in arguing | that he is incapable of being accountable given how meta | is structured | lob_it wrote: | "Where's the vaporware? Under the pickle...." is best | portrayed by the younger types. | | https://youtu.be/Ug75diEyiA0 | | You know why the food sucks so bad when you know who they are | catering to :p | abeppu wrote: | > Or altering the voting situation where he has absolute | power | | Absolutely this. Others in this thread are saying that the | fact of having lost a lot of money is enough for him to be | "accountable". But IMU the specific arrangement with Meta | class B vs class A shares is that the group of other | institutional investors lost _more_ but didn't have any | ability to influence decisions, replace the CEO, etc. | Zuckerberg's large on-paper loss isn't accountability for | decisions he made, but is just the risk of being a wealthy | person with a lopsided portfolio. | | Both because of his role in deciding to hire so much, and | because he's dead set on pursuing a metaverse vision which is | controversial, I think "accountability" would require him to | at least make it possible for other shareholders to vote on | proposals on an equal footing. | mattmaroon wrote: | Yeah that's about it. He's lost about $90b in net worth. I | suppose you can debate whether that's punishment enough or not | when you've got another $38b left or whatever. | | But I'll tell you this from experience: lasting people off | because you chose to grow too fast is really, really hard. I've | done it, though in my case it was a lot fewer people and I | actually knew and loved them all. If I had to lay off 11,000 | people I'd lose a lot of sleep over it. | | I can't imagine life is fun for him at the moment. But, just | like every affected employee, he will get through it. | jacobsenscott wrote: | This isn't hard for Zuck - he just directs his subordinates | to layoff a bunch of people, and then goes back to swimming | in his vault of cash. Losing x billion of essentially | infinity money is the same as losing no money. Once you reach | Zuck's level of wealth you can't really even conceive of non- | billionairs as the being same species as you, much less | empathize with them. | abstractmath wrote: | Have you ever managed or led people? | | Did you find it easier or harder than when you didn't | manage people? | | Have you ever laid someone off or fired them? Was it so | easy? | JKCalhoun wrote: | To be sure, laying off employees would be not be easy. | Imagine if these were people you had lunch with, chatted | with in the office every day, knew their husbands, | wives.... | at-fates-hands wrote: | Do you think Zuck was that close with any of the 11,000 | people who were laid off? | | If it was a small startup (been there done that) then | yeah, when you see people day-to-day, and get to know | them and their lives outside of work? Really hard to fire | people, knowing how it will affect the other people in | their lives. | | A multi-national, multi-billion dollar company with | 80,000+ employees? I'm not so sure. | pc86 wrote: | > _Have you ever laid someone off or fired them? Was it | so easy?_ | | I've heard this sentiment from people who have laid those | off and it always falls flat to me. | | Laying off 1 or 100 people compared to _being laid off_ - | especially when the person doing the firing, usually a | Director or above, is making 3-4x at least what the line | employees are - is like comparing pricking your finger | with a needle to cutting it off with a dull knife. | | It should be difficult if you're not a sociopath, but | they're so incomparable it's not even a statement worth | making or considering. | abstractmath wrote: | I'm not arguing that laying people off is nearly as hard | as getting laid off. | | I'm arguing against the idea that if you're a manager or | have money, that moments like this are easy or that | there's no empathy. i'm not saying that anyone should | feel bad for directors, CEOs, or whoever, but they | shouldn't paint a ridiculous straw man either. | | You could even argue that in Zuck's position, money is a | non-factor. He has more than enough money. What he | doesn't have is a beloved and future-proof company, and | these layoffs only push him further from that. | bombcar wrote: | Laying off one or five or ten good people is a tragedy. | | Laying off 13,000 is a statistic. | | (Based on a badly misquoted Stalin.) | staticman2 wrote: | Zuckerberg has complete voting control of Facebook. | Nobody can remove him as CEO. | | If this sort of thing bothered Zuck, he would not lay | people off. | Yhippa wrote: | Is he doing this to prop up his stock price for himself? | [deleted] | [deleted] | recuter wrote: | I can't imagine these sort of layoffs, which are baked into | the lifecycle and business plans of the company, were not | something he wasn't anticipating years and years ago when | hiring was being ramped up. In fact some notable fraction of | these 11,000 were hired in the first place only to be fired, | by design. | | Sweet dreams. | BarryMilo wrote: | And unlike any of his employees, he is a billionaire. I'm | sure he'll find a way to sleep. | disgruntledphd2 wrote: | I'm pretty sure that there's some multi millionaires left | at FB. Chris Cox is still there, he's likely a billionaire. | There's potentially one or two others left... | chasd00 wrote: | He's lost a lot but it's not like he's having to ask his wife | to stop going out to lunch with her friends. There's a level | of wealth where the numbers just stop having any real | meaning. $1B is still multiple lifetimes of the most decadent | luxury currently possible. | ForHackernews wrote: | > the most decadent luxury currently possible. | | Hey now, if he only has $38B that means he can't afford to | buy Twitter until Elon finishes destroying it. | Vibgyor5 wrote: | > He's lost a lot but it's not like he's having to ask his | wife to stop going out to lunch with her friends | | Fairly sure that none of the FB employees are paid so low | where they have to stop asking their spouses to go on a $20 | lunch with friends. | Yhippa wrote: | They do have to be concerned about where the money is | going to come from to pay their mortgages when severance | runs out. They got laid off into an environment where | layoffs at companies they might have worked at before are | reducing headcount. | | Not saying they shouldn't have saved for a rainy day. | This is a scary time to be laid off. | SoftTalker wrote: | $20 lunch. Must be nice. I don't spend that on myself --- | ever. My target for lunch (if I don't pack it myself) is | $5. That used to be pretty easy but getting harder these | days. | underwater wrote: | His wife is a pediatrician. She can pay her own way. | bmm6o wrote: | _Yeah that's about it. He's lost about $90b in net worth. I | suppose you can debate whether that's punishment enough_ | | He didn't pay a fine, it isn't any sort of punishment. He | tanked the value of the asset that is the primary component | of his wealth. That money is gone whether he "takes | responsibility" or not. | code_duck wrote: | Also, like Musk's Tesla holdings, he couldn't sell a | significant portion of those without reducing the value of | what he retained. | jjav wrote: | > I suppose you can debate whether that's punishment enough | or not when you've got another $38b left or whatever. | | But that's not taking responsibility. | | As an analogy, if you crash into another car with your car, | you can't just say "It's my fault, I take the blame" and then | walk away without paying for the repairs. Accepting blame is | a nice first step, but taking responsibility means restoring | the victim to how they were before the action happened. | throwawaysleep wrote: | It means as much as was said. Nothing at all. | orangepurple wrote: | > I wonder what taking responsibility actually means in | practice | | Increasing value of company stock | alecbz wrote: | I think just leaving it at "I got this wrong" would land way | better. | | Adding "and I take responsibility" without actually | substantiating that makes it sound way more hollow. | reaperducer wrote: | _> I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that. | | As always with these things, I wonder what taking | responsibility actually means in practice._ | | Perhaps he will give up his sixth boat, or his fourth house, or | his 13th car? Maybe he's going to wait on buying that private | island until next quarter. | | Everyone has to make sacrifices. | robbintt wrote: | It might slow the pace at which he tries to take over the | private resources of the island of Kauai, Hawaii from the | billionaires before him but I doubt it. | | I think it's interesting how pedestrian Oprah, Zuck, and | Larry Ellison are, obsessing over a place Elvis visited for | pork barbecue parties while demonstrating 0 understanding of | local people and their needs. | | It's incredibly embarrassing for humanity. | texasbigdata wrote: | That's super pessimistic. What do you want him to say: "sucks | all y'all lost your jobs but wasn't my fault. Haha you're | unemployed now". Like sure it's not much, but without owning | your mistakes how do you get better and improve to prevent them | from repeating? | fullshark wrote: | I'd like him to say words that have actual meaning, and not | words that resemble meaning after being filtered by a PR | consultant. | andyjohnson0 wrote: | I think your confusng pessimism with scepticism. | | Either his claim to take responsibility means something, in | terms of it actually leading to consequnces and/or actions, | or it doesn't. If it's the former, then what are they? If | it's the latter, then why? | | For example: do shareholders hold him to his responsibility? | And if so, how? If they don't, who improves Meta's corporate | governance to ensure that this self-admitted mistake doesnt | reoccur and sexure their investment? | | I've never worked at a BigCorp. How does this stuff work? | triceratops wrote: | He can resign. As CEO he's ultimately responsible for the | share price. By that measure, he just might be the worst- | performing employee at the company. | sicp-enjoyer wrote: | Do you have someone in mind? | javajosh wrote: | If it was poker, then Mark just lost a big hand because he | made a bad call. But he's still got a big stack, so he's | not going to walk away from the table. | eru wrote: | In poker you might even make the right move, but still | lose. It's all probabilities. | | Business shares something with that. | bombcar wrote: | He's also got full control of the company and arguably the | shareholders not named Zucc want him, so he'd in some way | be betraying them. | | IIRC, the owner/CEO has fired himself some times, Ford had | something like it, and I think LEGO too, years ago. | lovich wrote: | The shareholders not named zucc have zero influence on | him being ceo whether they want him or not. He pioneered | the tactic of having multiple classes of stock that let | him retain all the voting power while still selling off | "stock" that let him get investment money. Imo that sort | of setup should be illegal because it leads to the sort | of societally damaging behavior we see from meta | bombcar wrote: | The other shareholders could sell at anytime if they | don't like it; if they haven't sold, then they like him | being CEO as far as we can tell. | lovich wrote: | They did sell. They literally had the largest losses in a | single day in history by a single firm, but it doesn't | matter, he still controls the company | triceratops wrote: | They have sold, in droves. The stock has fallen 73% this | year. | | It's slightly absurd to say that "sell" is the only lever | shareholders should have over public companies. It may be | true in practical terms, but it's still a sad state of | affairs. | infamouscow wrote: | Businesses can be successful while simultaneously | operating in ways that you don't personally approve of. | You're free to avoid doing business with those | organizations. | lovich wrote: | That has nothing to do with the idea that shareholders | have a say on how meta operates | infamouscow wrote: | Meta shareholders don't have much say on how Zuck runs | things, that's what you signed up for when you buy Meta | shares. | | How many people upset about Meta layoffs were equally | fierce in condemning Zuck for Meta's stock performance | over the last decade? Seems like yet another case of | people wanting their cake and eating it too -- the only | novelty is the people affected are some of the most | privileged people in human history. | [deleted] | discordance wrote: | "Today, effective immediately, I, Gavin Belson, founder and CEO | of Hooli, am forced to officially say goodbye to the entire | Nucleus division. All Nucleus personnel will be given proper | notice and terminated. But make no mistake. Though they're the | ones leaving, it is I who must remain and bear the heavy burden | of their failure." | cdolan wrote: | SV from HBO I'd really something else | papito wrote: | Rewatched all of it recently. It actually got better and | more on the nose with time. Incredible. | TchoBeer wrote: | For how long it is, it's incredible how high the hit rate | for jokes were. | rbanffy wrote: | It was disturbingly accurate for parody. | lazide wrote: | I couldn't watch it - I lived through far crazier stuff | than what they showed, and it was just too painful. | | One of those cases where they had to tone down reality so | people would believe it, but _still_ came across as | unrealistic! | samstave wrote: | did you work at Uber during their crazy days? | lazide wrote: | That startup experience was all pre-Uber existing, for | better or worse! | rbanffy wrote: | If you feel like triggering your PTSDs, | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup.com is a good one. | Not intended to be a comedy, however. | | Quite the opposite. | rbanffy wrote: | While watching with my wife I kept mentioning who I knew | that were perfectly characterized in the series. | | The Three Comma Guy, Gavin Belson, the Conjoined | Triangles of Success... Been through all that. | samstave wrote: | Whats your dick to floor ratio? | sytelus wrote: | SV should start new season. Writers will have no shortage of | material. | blaser-waffle wrote: | 11000 people lose their jobs -- "let's make more shows | about it!" | | to quote an old guy: "first as tragedy, then as farce" | sytelus wrote: | I am imagining a scene were Gavin Belson takes over Pied | Piper and installs his VC friends who immediately fire | half of the people. Then website crashes in next hour and | they are frantically calling back people to re-hire them. | r00fus wrote: | Sometimes times are so bleak you need humor to really | process it all. | cloutchaser wrote: | I wonder how many of the people who say "musk is just an | investor and Tesla and spacex exist because of the engineers" | now say | | Zuckerberg is clearly the responsible for the failures of | Facebook. | | You can't have both. | Eisenstein wrote: | > you can't have both. | | Why not? Nothing you wrote suggests that we cannot have | both. In fact, Musk _bought_ Tesla, is not an engineer, has | no engineering training or education or engineering | accomplishments (the code he was writing for the company | that became PayPal was notoriously terrible and had to be | scrapped). Say what you want about Zuck, but if you plopped | him down at a terminal and made him do the job of one of | his own senior Devs I bet he would be able to do it. Musk | couldn 't do the same for any one of his companies in any | of the technical positions. | | I find it interesting that someone states something like | 'you can't it both ways' without thinking it through and | while presenting no reasoning for it, and then just leave | it there like it is now a rule we must accept. | tifadg1 wrote: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeYaQGbD6Xc | | Hilarious, yet the way corporate PR is heading it could be | real and none would be the wiser. | cableshaft wrote: | For someone who barely ever worked an office job, Mike Judge | is an expert at portraying office space. | tyingq wrote: | There's an interview here that covers some of how it | happened: https://www.theringer.com/movies/2019/2/19/182286 | 73/office-s... | | It does mention he worked for a military contractor, which | probably provided an accelerated environment for learning | corporate bs. | hindsightbias wrote: | A number of us were convinced Judge just hung out in a | booth at Applebees and local bars in Austin and wrote down | everything we were saying. | | Living in Richardson explains Beavis and KotH. | tuyiown wrote: | I suspect he mainly had to figure out that it's the same as | everywhere else, but the displayed politeness of office | managers make it especially delectable satire. | | In Office Space there is the <<pieces of flair>> argument | with the waitress (Aniston), it's much more bitter, and I | suspect much harder to keep it funny, because in truth | those worker endured much more violent management, there is | little space to spin it in a funny way. | samstave wrote: | Yeah.... I'm going to have to ask you to come in on | Sunday... thanks.... | | -- | | When I was an early IT manager my team would make fun of | me and compare me to the manager from office space... | because I would always say "thanks" when I would ask them | for something... | | But I learned to say "thanks" because at Intel - in the | 90's it was company culture to always close an email with | "thanks" | | When I worked at FB though it was a hostile environment. | so no Thanks. | blaser-waffle wrote: | > because in truth those worker endured much more violent | management, there is little space to spin it in a funny | way. | | what? no one got beat over flair, and having worked in a | lot of serving jobs, the level of violence serving drinks | was roughly on par with the number of fights I've seen in | the data center. | ilaksh wrote: | All of them bloated up. It's just like, polite to take the | blame. | stillametamate wrote: | jghn wrote: | At sone point "I take responsibility" came to mean nothing more | than "My bad". It's as if the act of saying it was your fault | is all that's necessary. | | Ive noticed it used this way more and more, presumably as | people realize it's utility as a get of jail free card | twblalock wrote: | When did it mean anything other than "my bad"? It never did. | StevePerkins wrote: | Just months ago, "The Crying CEO" guy became a viral meme for | expressing too much empathy in a layoff. | | It's fucking job terminations. You're GOING to be criticized | no matter how you do them. The best approach is to just be | robotic about it, and maybe throw in a platitude that amounts | to, _" It's not you, it's me"_. | greenthrow wrote: | He was not criticized for showing too much empathy. He was | criticized for not _actually_ showing empathy. He made it | all about himself. You might want to look into how you | misunderstood that so badly. | Aeolun wrote: | No, he was criticized for using it as publicity on | LinkedIn. | SilasX wrote: | What? It wasn't for "expressing too much empathy", it's for | being obviously staged. Like, who gets their hot-take | emotional reaction on video and then uploads it? | /r/whyweretheyfilming vibes. | lovich wrote: | He wasn't criticized for having empathy, he was criticized | for the narcissistic attempt to make the layoffs all about | how his emotions. | idontpost wrote: | jherskovic wrote: | The Stripe people did it right, or at least as right as you | can under these circumstances. https://stripe.com/en- | au/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons... | | Relevant discussion: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33450753 | sigstoat wrote: | they got grief for exactly the same line zuckerberg is | getting grief for in this thread. | jghn wrote: | Sure. But it's only "taking responsibility" if you | demonstrate you're actually intending to either a) actually | be accountable in some fashion and/or b) actually lay out | how you'll change to make the bad thing not happen in the | future. | | "We need to layoff half of the company. I'm sorry and take | responsibility. I have failed our employees and | shareholders. Because of this, I am stepping down". That's | taking responsibility. | | "We had a major F-up. It was my responsibility. And here | are the concrete steps I am taking to ensure it never | happens again, along with the mechanisms you all have to | hold me accountable. If these fail, the following bad thing | will happen to me." That's taking responsibility | wickedsickeune wrote: | I know that this is a low quality comment, but thank you, | you have restored my faith in humanity. | vasco wrote: | A company is bound to fire people in a well functioning | economy or the alternative is every single employee will | lose their job when the company goes bankrupt. Some | people would rather bring every company down to the | ground before firing a single person. In a well | functioning economy what you then want is a short worker | reallocation time. | | Also if one of your options for "taking responsibility" | is quitting, I guess your view of the world is that you | would also fire any of your employees when they mess up, | when whole industries have recognized the need for | blameless cultures where making mistakes is part of the | learning process. | jghn wrote: | You can fire people and/or let them go without claiming | you "take full responsibility". That's ok, and exactly my | point. | | The phrase "I take responsibility" is never accompanied | with any sign that the person does in fact take | responsibility. It means more than just "Ooops, I did a | bad" | [deleted] | crazygringo wrote: | It means he's not trying to scapegoat a VP or the board or say | "It's not my fault nobody foresaw this economy." | | It doesn't mean anything in terms of action or "self- | punishment" but nor should it. The dude has already lost many | more billions of dollars than you or I will ever see. | | I'm no fan of the guy, but some people won't even take | responsibility verbally. So at least he's not descending _that_ | low. | | And the severance seems decent so it all seems to be handled | fine. Not sure what more you're looking for. | [deleted] | 2rsf wrote: | > The dude has already lost many more billions of dollars | than you or I will ever see | | Those are mostly virtual dollars and he has a lot more real | ones in his account, while I agree that whatever he does to | "punish himself" will be practically meaningless it might | have some symbolic meaning. Lowering his and senior | management salaries and incentives won't save jobs but will | give a better image of the crisis | crazygringo wrote: | His salary is already only $1/yr, and has been since 2013. | So there's nothing to do there. | | And lowering the salaries of senior management doesn't make | any sense. They're paid market rates. If you punitively cut | their compensation in half or something, they'll just leave | for another company that does pay market rate. You can't | force them to stick around and be "punished", that's not | how salaried employment in a market economy works. | | Also, punishing management goes _against_ the idea that he | 's taking all the responsibility here. Wouldn't that just | be scapegoating? | paledot wrote: | > His salary is already only $1/yr, and has been since | 2013. So there's nothing to do there. | | That's a joke, a tax dodge, a PR gag, a farce. There's | nothing fiscally responsible about it. Taking financial | responsibility, if such a thing exists, would involve | giving up his equity comp or even some of his holdings. | Give it to the employees whose careers you've disrupted | through your bad business decisions. That's | responsibility. | | "Market rates" is likewise a joke. | | A: "Market rates for corporate executives are obscene." | | B: "They're paid market rates, what's the problem?" | eru wrote: | Corporate executive are also employees. | | And their careers have been more disrupted than some | random software engineer's career. | rbanffy wrote: | It seems fair. If executives were making the decisions | that landed the company in a difficult situation, it's | only fair they bear the consequences of their failure. | Besides, it's difficult to empathize when their | compensation packages are, while market rate, | significantly higher than the engineers who do their | bidding. I wouldn't be surprised if the fraction of | executives that would be able to retire at this point was | much higher than the one for engineers, which is likely | much higher than the one for non-engineering individual | contributors. | | Also remember that since it's executives who set | executive compensation, there is some incentive to | inflate it. | lovich wrote: | Executives are not employees, they have agency to decide | the companies direction. More agency brings more | responsibility | klyrs wrote: | > And their careers have been more disrupted than some | random software engineer's career. | | Were they really? Did they just lose their jobs and are | they now underwater on mortgages that their families can | no longer afford without that income? How many executives | lives were "disrupted" worse than that? Because I'm | talking about a significant fraction of 11k people that | you're dismissing as "some random software engineer." | not2b wrote: | Not to mention "here on a H1-B visa with a short time to | find a new tech job or be deported". | jfdbcv wrote: | Does Zuckerberg take equity compensation? I thought he | just owned ~14% of FB. | airstrike wrote: | You're right, he has given up equity comp. I was curious | so went looking... | | Based on the latest proxy, he does not take any equity | compensation. He only gets his $1 salary, a corporate | private jet for business travel and $10M / year "to cover | additional costs related to his and his family's personal | security. This allowance is paid to Mr. Zuckerberg net of | required tax withholdings, and Mr. Zuckerberg must apply | the net amount towards additional personnel, equipment, | services, residential improvements, or other security- | related costs." | | https://www.bamsec.com/filing/132680122000043/1?cik=13268 | 01&... | lovich wrote: | That says requested and doesn't specify what he actually | receives which is weasely enough to make me question the | word choice | airstrike wrote: | That's not how proxies work | lovich wrote: | Does the wording here not allow for a different result | than what is implied? I'm not familiar with the specific | legalities around this document | lovich wrote: | Need to point out that this "there's nothing you can do, | all the incentives align to him keeping the wealth while | others suffer" is the sort of dunking on capitalism that | leads people towards socialism | crazygringo wrote: | Him _keeping_ the wealth? | | He's lost literally 73% of his wealth over the past year | and change (assuming it's all META ownership). That is a | _spectacular_ drop. | | And the people getting laid off are getting very generous | severance packages. | | So I don't know what you're talking about. The market has | punished him, and quite severely, for his missteps. | | But it's not like he was being evil or malicious or | something. He overhired thinking growth would continue. | It didn't. Now he has to lay off. A million managers have | found themselves in the same situation before. | stolsvik wrote: | You should try it. We (mostly) love it. | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model | bradleyjg wrote: | We've tried it, it was far worse. There are still people | alive who were there, maybe all the younger people | advocating socialism should chat with them? | lovich wrote: | Europe is far worse? The New Deal was far worse? We've | decided to go down the cyberpunk corporate hellscape path | since the 80s and post 2001 it's just been consistently | degrading workers lives. I think most millennials and gen | z would trade their financial outlook for their parents | so I really can't accept this "far worse" description | bradleyjg wrote: | None of that was socialism. It's welfare capitalism which | the entire west today has in one variant or another. | Saying we should tune up regulations and/or the safety | net is an entirely reasonable thing we could have a | discussion about. Talking about socialism is ignorant or | foolish. | lovich wrote: | They're all socialist policies, no country is purely | capitalistic or purely socialistic. To be clear when I | said "leads people towards socialism" I meant pushes them | in a direction that advocates for more socialist policies | like increasing the safety net | snovv_crash wrote: | DDR was 'real' socialist. | arbitrage wrote: | In no way. The DDR was a communist cesspit of a proxy | state for the USSR from day one. | | It was not socialist. It just called itself that. | bradleyjg wrote: | Communism is a subset of socialism. Welfare capitalism | isn't. | lovich wrote: | Communism isn't a subset of socialism unless you're using | the American conservative definition where they all just | equate to evil | bradleyjg wrote: | On the contrary that's what actual communists believed. | | There's a Baptists and bootleggers coalition to pervert | the meaning of socialism. Right wingers want to call | everything to the left of Ronald Reagan socialism so they | can paint it all as evil and a subset of people that are | fairly bog standard welfare capitalists want to call | themselves socialists because they think it sounds edgy | and cool. | | They are both wrong. Socialism involves collectivizing | the means of production. Not a wealth tax. Not a | greenhouse emissions rule. Not forcing companies to put | women on their board. Not repealing at will employment. | Collectivizing the means of production. | | If you want to call for nationalizing Facebook then you | are a socialist (and a fool.) | kilna wrote: | When polled, about 60% of folks who lived and worked as | adults in the soviet bloc regret its fall into | capitalism. | yonaguska wrote: | Notably missing from the polls, the millions that died in | prisons, labor camps, or just starved. | random314 wrote: | And by how much would that have affected the poll | numbers? | | Or is this just a glib low effort put down? | yonaguska wrote: | glib low effort put down to a glib low effort statistic. | | When there are an estimated 7 to 9 million excess deaths | recorded for the duration of the USSR, there's certainly | going to be some survivorship bias with any polling. | | The fall of the soviet system to capitalism was a mess, | but it doesn't actually tell us anything about how people | felt about communism vs capitalism. The statistic | presented was in defense of socialism/communism. But, the | transition from the soviet union to capitalist Russia was | messy in its own right. Russia was looted by oligarchs | taking advantage of the disarray. | | All that being said, it looks like the poster was | referencing this article, which is based on a survey | conducted in 2009, long after the collapse of the soviet | union...but one year into a worldwide recession. So I'm | still not sure what conclusions one can really draw from | that survey. | | https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2009/1223/Why- | nearly-... | jodrellblank wrote: | Notably missing from understanding is that advocating for | collective ownership of things for the benefit of the | masses instead of the 1% is not the same as advocating | for gulags and mass graves. It's as ridiculous as | advocating for space exploration and people like you | retorting "you want Challenger 10, you do, you want | schoolteachers dying in agonising explosions". | | Salvador Allende became President of Chile in 1970, he | presided for 3 years before being taken down by a coup | supported by the US government. In the time he was in | power, he pushed a socialist program for Chile. Let's see | some highlights of his "prisons, labor camps and | starving", eh? | | - nationalization of large-scale industries (notably | copper mining and banking) | | - a programme of free milk for children in the schools | and in the shanty towns | | - payment of pensions and grants was resumed | | - increased construction of residential buildings, | averaging 55,000/year | | - all part-time workers granted rights to social | security, and increased payments | | - proposed electricity price-increase withdrawn | | - bread prices fixed | | - 55,000 volunteers sent to the south to teach literacy, | and provide medical care | | - obligatory minimum wage for workers of all ages was | established | | - free milk introduced for expectant and nursing mothers | and [young] children | | - free school-meals established | | - rent reductions | | - construction of Santiago subway rescheduled to serve | working-class neighbourhoods first. | | - state-sponsored distribution of free food to neediest | citizens. | | - minimum taxable income-level was raised | | - middle-class Chileans benefited from elimination of | taxes on modest incomes and property. | | - Exemptions from capital taxes were extended, benefitted | 330,000 small proprietors. | | - According to one estimate, purchasing power went up by | 28% between October 1970 and July 1971.[53] | | - The rate of inflation fell from 36.1% in 1970 to 22.1% | in 1971 | | - Average real wages rose by 22.3% during 1971. | | - Minimum real wages for blue-collar workers were | increased by 56% during the first quarter of 1971 - real | minimum wages for white-collar workers were increased by | 23% - Although the acceleration of inflation in 1972 and | 1973 eroded part of the initial increase in wages, they | still rose (on average) in real terms during the 1971-73 | period. | | and, much more; | | - | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende#Presidency | | By contrast, the UK today has 27% of children living in | poverty[1], and the UK government has voted against free | school meals for children, and just tried to push through | a tax cut for the rich, and electricity prices have gone | up while energy companies are posting record profits, | housing construction is down and prices are up so normal | citizens are being priced out of the housing market. | | [1] https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty- | facts-and-fi... | kilna wrote: | Oh thanks, good point. Bringing up the people killed by | the ideology puts Capitalism on even shakier footing. In | one country, India, capitalism killed more than the | overinflated imperialist "estimates" for all soviet bloc | countries over its entire lifetime. If we're including | dead people in our hypotheticals, then there's the near- | entire population of the Americas and Australia before | colonialism, and a good chunk of Africa, Asia and | elsewhere. | tiagod wrote: | > The dude has already lost many more billions of dollars | than you or I will ever see. | | Is it worse to lose a billion dollars when you have two b, or | a thousand dollars when all you have is 2k? | sithlord wrote: | To be fair, to "lose" billions of dollars. Really means | putting that money into the economy without any immediate | return. Which kinda sounds like a good thing? | Yhippa wrote: | Inefficient allocation of capital doesn't sound like a | good thing to me. | abdabab wrote: | When the valuation drops those money just evaporates. | They don't go into economy. | indigodaddy wrote: | I'd say the latter because what you end up with is much | more relatively closer to zero. Of course you weren't | losing much in the first place so there's plenty of | argument for the former as well. | lovich wrote: | That latter argument ignores the marginal utility of | dollars. It is a mental illness to think going from 2 to | 1 billion is worse than going from 2k to 1k | danans wrote: | The marginal utility of money is a real thing, but it | applies to purchase of life basics, like goods, services, | and security. | | The marginal utility of money for power and influence in | our societies seems to start a few orders of magnitude | above the upper middle class, and so far doesn't seem to | bend down very much as money increases. | baxtr wrote: | Taking responsibility means first of all admitting that you | were wrong. Most people never even get to this first step. | obert wrote: | laying off 11k employees while still claiming to be "historically | important" and "profitable"... Poor attempt to stay positive IMO | rvz wrote: | Good. About time. $180K per employee for years is not | sustainable. | | This is the general 'Tech Crash' I was talking about before all | of this happened in advance. [0] [1] | | We'll see what happens after the news. No company is safe. Not | even FAAMNG companies that HN has been screaming about for years | was ever untouchable. | | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22663119 | | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29508238 | matwood wrote: | > $180K per employee for years is not sustainable. | | By what metric? Metas profits the first 3Qs of the year totaled | ~$17B. They would have been higher if not for Zuck's insane | spending on the metaverse. | | As the letter says, Meta clearly over hired around covid to the | tune of 30k+ people. It's normal to pull back some. | | Engineers at these companies generate so much economic value, I | would argue they are still underpaid at 180k. | muro wrote: | Wrong CEO :) | matwood wrote: | Hah, thanks! | iamstupidsimple wrote: | Crab bucket mentality. Those salaries are fine, what went wrong | is Meta overhired. FAANG companies don't have enough work to go | around as it is. | habinero wrote: | Okay, but it's not eng being hit, it looks like. He mentions | recruiting and biz depts. | hsbauauvhabzb wrote: | Congratulations on your prediction? | tiagod wrote: | Where's your source for $180K/year average for these 11k | employees? | FartyMcFarter wrote: | Since you insist on tooting your own horn, I think you should | put a timeline on your predictions, as well as specifics on how | this "crash" differs from periodic layoffs that happen every | decade or even more often than that. | | Anyone can predict that things will be bad at some point in the | future. | ddorian43 wrote: | > $180K per employee for years is not sustainable. > - House | prices will skyrocket | | Who will pay these house prices? | wickedsickeune wrote: | For those wondering what "accountability" and "responsibility" | should look like: | | They do not need to mean punishment, they can just mean "clear, | concrete intent for remediation and improvement". | | The remediation part is implemented by the severance package. The | intent for improvement, is nowhere to be seen. | | When somebody makes a mistake, punishing on its own is | meaningless. The point is to remedy the mistake (eg pay money if | the mistake incurred a financial loss) and prevent further future | mistakes. No, the CEO should not resign, they should just | identify why things went SO wrong and show a clear plan on how to | prevent such mistakes from the future. | | If someone deletes a database, I don't expect them to resign, I | expect them to restore it from a backup, and find a way to | prevent such mistakes from the future (eg run migrations in a | reversible transaction) | ergocoder wrote: | They did. It is the over hiring, and they rectify it by laying | off people and going into hiring freeze. | [deleted] | CarbonCycles wrote: | I agree. Two very different business responses between Musk and | Zuck. I almost feel sorry for Zuck as we are witnessing meltdowns | of two large companies in real-time. Musk just continues to dig | his own grave... | | I feel bad for the ppl losing their jobs but that is a very | generous severance package. | roflyear wrote: | FB is making like $30bn year in profit. I am not sure if they | are melting down? | matwood wrote: | > meltdowns | | Huh?. Meta's growth has slowed, but they are a money printing | machine. Earnings have gone down because of the enormous bet | Zuck has made on the metaverse. | | Twitter has been barely scraping by for years. The two | companies are not really even comparable. | p0pcult wrote: | No, earnings have been going down because Apple fucked Meta | with Apple's policy change on asking for consent to be | tracked. Meta has even stated as much in various earnings | calls since this happened. | | This has severely hurt Meta's ad revenue, i.e., earnings. | | The metaverse stuff is a bad bet, you are correct, but is not | likely impacting earnings in any significant way. | matwood wrote: | Revenue has slowed from the Apple change, but the drop in | Q3 profits can almost entirely be pinned on RL as staff and | other investments has accelerated. | | > company's rising costs and expenses, which jumped 19% | year over year to $22.1 billion during the quarter. | | > Meta's Reality Labs unit, which is responsible for | developing the virtual reality and related augmented | reality technology that underpins the yet-to-be built | metaverse, has lost $9.4 billion so far in 2022. | | The effects from the Apple changes are mostly in the rear | view mirror at this point. You could attributed a 4% | revenue hit to them, but those can also be attributed to a | general slowing economy. | | https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/26/meta-plans-to-lose-even- | more... | colinmhayes wrote: | Earnings down 4% in bad macro conditions for advertising | and compared to a pandemic when people spent more time on | the internet. I don't think facebook revenue is going | anywhere soon, a decade from now though who knows. | jryhjythtr wrote: | Their income and operating margin has almost halved, compared | to 2021. Their free cash flow is _1 /50th_ of the previous | few quarters. Those are truly horrible results. | | FB was a money printing machine, but they trashed it. | umanwizard wrote: | Apple trashed it, not FB itself. | jryhjythtr wrote: | FB started sinking money into the Metaverse long before | that. | matwood wrote: | Not at the same scale. It's been accelerating and | continues to accelerate. From another announcement today: | | > "We continue to anticipate that Reality Labs operating | losses in 2023 will grow significantly year-over-year," | | https://www.marketwatch.com/story/meta-lowers-expense- | foreca... | | Everyone wants to dance on Meta's grave, but it's way too | soon. Yes, the Apple change gave them a top line haircut, | but if the RL spend is excluded, they are making a ton of | money. I'd also argue that the real headwinds are the | general economy and TikTok. | jryhjythtr wrote: | >the real headwinds are the general economy and TikTok | | Right, and not Apple's actions. | roflyear wrote: | They are still making insane profits. | loeg wrote: | High revenue but the stock is down 74% this year for a | reason. | colinmhayes wrote: | Because it's run by an unaccountable megalomaniac who has | signalled that he doesn't give a shit about his investors, | not because of any fundamentals. | loeg wrote: | Bad governance is fundamental! | colinmhayes wrote: | I don't think Mark saying "we're going to focus on the | metaverse instead of making money for a few years" is a | meltdown. They're still making money, their earnings are | still sky high, they're just spending more than they need | to. | lvl102 wrote: | Zuck did it himself too. No one told him to go all-in on VR. No | one. All he had to do was tackle payment and maybe cloud. He | first went for crypto and then is in the process of failing | with VR. | | Meta really needs to be in the cloud business. | Moldoteck wrote: | I thought this problem is less related to vr and more related | to ads revenue that dropped because of apple. vr was just a | way to create a platform from the ground where ads will | continue to be their business model | cdiddy2 wrote: | Their payment attempt was stifled by regulators though. I | wonder where they would be at if they had launched Diem | instead of shutting that down | bergenty wrote: | Screw that, I think the meta verse will pan out. Zucc will | rise from the ashes. | rippercushions wrote: | AWS has the first mover advantage, Microsoft knows | enterprise, Google has some awesome tech. I'm not sure what | Meta could bring to the table? | randomsearch wrote: | 100%. I do think there is room for another company | though... but definitely not Facebook. | eitally wrote: | But there are other companies, who are already doing | pretty well: Oracle, Alibaba/AliCloud, Hetzer, Digital | Ocean, even Rackspace. | danpalmer wrote: | Agree on VR, payments, disagree on Cloud. It's a saturated | market, there are half a dozen operators who each have unique | selling points. I don't know what Meta's would be. | | Doubling down on becoming one of these "everything" apps | could have been a good strategy. Become the app frontend for | one of the less big food delivery companies in the FB app, | tie in to payments. Perhaps even buy Square for Cash App and | all the POS integrations to build a network of sellers, all | tightly integrated from the consumer perspective into the | Facebook app. I'd have hated it, but I suspect it could have | worked. | tuyguntn wrote: | Very good lesson here for both Twitter, FB and any other | upcoming startup. Never treat your 3rd party developers as | shit. Look what WeChat achieved with their superapp and | developer ecosystem. Twitter and FB tightened their rules a | lot over the years, when they had a potential to become | super app for West | Siira wrote: | The rules were tightened by pressure from politicians | though? | disgruntledphd2 wrote: | It would have cratered their gross margins though, which | would have meant a (potentially permanent) hit to the share | price. | | I agree that it would have been a good strategy, but that's | (presumably) why they never did it. | lvl102 wrote: | Payment has much higher multiple especially compared to | FB. It's quite literally the closest thing to printing | money. | disgruntledphd2 wrote: | It doesn't have the same margins as advertising. | danpalmer wrote: | Interesting. Is that because payments are much lower | margin than ads? Surely investors would be smart enough | to see the additional revenue, and likely additional | benefit to the ads business, as being worth it? | disgruntledphd2 wrote: | Investors like standardized numbers apparently | JCharante wrote: | A lot of apps want to become a social network but Facebook | was in a good position to do so. Imagine someone posting a | picture of their Brunch. They tagged the location. Some AI | matches the picture of the food with the pictures from the | menu (google reviews already does this to some degree). | | That food looks good, imagine if they partnered with Uber | or Grab so you can add to cart right below the picture. | | Peer to Peer payments could have also been great, | especially if you could check-out at a store by scanning a | QR code to pay (think WeChat Pay, FairPrice in Singapore, | or even Paypal's version of that). | | Or even buying event tickets. They already have events on | the platform, and they let you put targeted ads, but what | about an integrated experience to purchase tickets right on | the platform instead of there being an external link? | | They could have done so much but the only major | change/addition in recent years was Dating (a huge hit in | countries that perceive Tinder as only for hookups) and | those avatars that people use everywhere instead of text | posts. | tech_tuna wrote: | I'm not looking to praise Zuck but he did at least try | something new. That's how companies stay alive and vital and | relevant. Innovation. He gambled big on VR and it didn't pay | off. At least not yet. I don't think it will pay off but I | have to respect that he went big on a new direction for the | company. | | I still think Facebook is evil and I feel like they should | have tried to buy Tik Tok although I don't know how feasible | that ever was. | | >Meta really needs to be in the cloud business. | | That's an interesting idea. | optymizer wrote: | TikTok is a Chinese company bringing in mountains of data | on US citizens, including the ability to influence what | people in the US see on a daily basis. The Chinese | government would never sell that kind of leverage to | anyone, let alone to Facebook, which is banned in China. | system2 wrote: | It is baffling why the U.S. government didn't ban TikTok. | I'd rather zucc steal people's info than chinese ppl. | triyambakam wrote: | Because some and certain high ranking US officials are | working with China | randomsearch wrote: | > That's an interesting idea. | | That's a crazy idea, if original. What do Facebook know | about building and selling general cloud services? | slaw wrote: | Google didn't innovate in the last 10 years and it's very | alive and vital. Maybe doing good one thing is enough. Like | Google doing ads. | eddsh1994 wrote: | Aren't people constantly complaining about Googles | failing products and slowly worsening core products like | search? | slaw wrote: | That is exactly lack of innovation. 15th version of | Hangouts and worse search every year. | mayankkaizen wrote: | Google's portfolio is a bit more diversified than FB. | Besides, Google services have some value, they offer some | essential services. FB not so much. | | Besides, Google is trying 50 different things but it | didn't go full throttle on any idea like FB did for | Metaverse. Huge difference. | erikpukinskis wrote: | If I put on my rose colored glasses, I still wish Facebook | had just stuck to identity. | | They could've been "the login for the social internet"... | they even built that platform! They just were so paranoid | about losing control of the graph they shut it all down. | Twitter also failed on the developer/platform front for the | same reason. | | They could've been the identity platform for every hot | startup in the last 10 years. They could've courted | developers such that every platform add-on they did got | immediate head start... like ads! They could've out-AdSensed | Adsense. | | Anyway, I'm sure that's all terrible business strategy, but | it's what I wish they had done. Even though I'd probably be | cursing their name now if they owned all of our logins. | personjerry wrote: | You have to make big bets to continue winning. It's easy for | us to sit in our armchairs and criticize their failures, but | for example their plays with going mobile-first in 2008 and | the acquisition of Instagram in 2012 worked out very well. | boxed wrote: | It's better to make many small bets and when they start to | take off, THEN put the foot on the pedal. Zuck has been | notoriously bad at creating new products, so betting the | company on that he'll manage it _this_ time seems like a | very bad idea. | sicp-enjoyer wrote: | How do you start a Tesla with small bets? | benjaminwootton wrote: | Buying Instagram was a real jaw dropping moment if I | remember. $1 billion sounded like a lot of money back in | the day! | randomsearch wrote: | hmm, maybe, but it seems like a golden age for tech where | it was hard to fail from a strong starting position. MS, | Google, Amazon, Apple, have all done much better than | Facebook. | zulban wrote: | > No one told him to go all-in on VR. No one. | | You can't possibly know that. Try not to get caught up in | your own speculation and speculation from pundits. | pavlov wrote: | FB briefly was in the cloud PaaS business when they acquired | Parse. | | The problem is that the way Meta runs its data centers and | software stack is tightly integrated with the products. It's | not really amenable to running third party applications or | storing third party data. | lordnacho wrote: | So, loosen the connection? Isn't that what thousands of | engineers are for? Didn't Amazon do this originally? | | I'm not sure cloud is actually such a great thing for FB | but if you're going to do it, that's an inevitable step, | isn't it? | scarface74 wrote: | Amazon's infrastructure was also tightly integrated with | its products. Despite the often repeated and very wrong | myth that AWS was founded by Amazon selling its "excess | capacity", AWS was always created with a separate | infrastructure that was purpose built to sell to other | companies: | | https://www.networkworld.com/article/2891297/the-myth- | about-... | mbreese wrote: | What about the concept of a data center inside a data | center? Given their infrastructure size and necessary | geographical layout, it should be possible to have a number | of IaaS racks stored inside their existing data center | footprint. | | If they have their own data centers (which I assume they | do), this would make a lot of sense, kinda like a ghost | kitchen -- a virtual data center. That is, assuming they | have the physical space to support something like this. It | would be a way to diversify income with largely existing | resources and vendor contracts. | | Imagine even a slimmed down service like fly.io or | Cloudflare workers running at FB data center scale. | spydum wrote: | not a ton of market for that. and it changes the risk | nature of their own facilities. already plenty of | hyperscale datacenters with space to lease. what | advantage does meta offer? surely they wont beat on | price. | mbreese wrote: | It's probably not worth the hassle to FB, but it is funny | to think about how big of a business this could | potentially be. But even a profitable business unit might | not make enough profit to actually make it worthwhile. | | It could certainly work. But it would probably be too | small a business for a company as large as Meta. The | differences in scales is (I think) one of their problems. | At Meta scale (somewhat a pun), many things are just | harder/not worthwhile because of their size. | oblio wrote: | Nobody's infra business is really neatly separated. If the | will is there, it can be done. | whatyesaid wrote: | How would Meta win in the cloud business though? | XorNot wrote: | They don't need to win, they just need to be there as | another option. Every business I've worked at has been huge | on wanting cloud diversity of some sort, and tons of | startups act as middle men on this. | | Another of the big boys offering a cloud product would | guarantee it would pick up customers and give them another | avenue they can plausibly hunt for competitive advantage | in. | lvl102 wrote: | My opinion is that Meta has the best AI/ML infra in the | business. | rippercushions wrote: | Both TikTok and Google (Tensorflow etc) would beg to | differ on that. | reilly3000 wrote: | SMB. They are effectively the webmaster for a vast amount | of very small business, but also Meta's ad platform ends up | being one of the larger expenses for many businesses. In | fact, I doubt there is a single entity on earth that has | more billable B2B relationships. | | I agree that spinning up a pure-play public cloud makes no | sense for Meta. Its not in their ethos, moreover selling | various abstractions over virtualized compute is a | commodity. Why would they get in line, behind IBM and | Oracle? | | Given that Office 365 is being counted as 'Cloud' imagine | what Meta could do with some $100/yr SMB service. On the | enterprise end, they have some of the very best big data | and ML infra and could do well to bundle up extra capacity | sell that on a metered basis. If they had started offering | managed Presto in 2015 this conversation wouldn't be | happening. | | Their network infra (IP space, undersea cables, edge pops | etc) is also rather vast and I could see a lot of SMB to | F500 customers lining up to leverage it if bundled right. | If they wanted to they could write a check for CloudFlare, | I checked their balance sheet. Meta Cloudflare would be a | juggernaut; so powerful that I pray the FTC wouldn't allow | it. | | Historically Facebook has been allergic to B2B outside of | selling ads. Even within it they bought and killed Atlas, | effectively handing a monopoly on ad serving to | Doubleclick. Now they are warming up to it, offering | Workplace, Kustomer, and Oculus for enterprise. I think | that the Metaverse could be a novel B2B play and so do | they, calling it "The Future of Work". | | tl;dr: Meta could win the cloud business because it has the | people, cash, differentiated tech, and existing | relationships. They could beat AWS/GCP/Azure in many | segments of IT spend by packaging their assets together | into a novel kind of cloud. | htrp wrote: | >If they wanted to they could write a check for | CloudFlare, I checked their balance sheet. Meta | Cloudflare would be a juggernaut; so powerful that I pray | the FTC wouldn't allow it. | | Why would there be any issue from an FTC standpoint? As | far as I can tell, they're in completely separate | businesses. I do agree it is a brilliant idea to | Microsoft-ize the SMB relationships they already have to | sell software services. | reilly3000 wrote: | I support I feel uncomfortable about it, but maybe such a | merger wouldn't raise antitrust flags. CloudFlare has an | insane amount centralization. I love their services as a | web user, developer, and operator, but WOW do they have a | lot of power by nature of their business. I worry about a | buyout by a less principled company that could do all | manner of wrong with CloudFlare's assets. For example, a | Meta Cloudflare could start to delay or block 1.1.1.1 DNS | queries to their competition, and do so quietly and | selectively. Any service that offers "Protection" ought | not be part of a conglomerate. | PM_me_your_math wrote: | Correct me if I am worng, but hasnt Twitter has seen more | growth in the last week than it has in some time? 15 million | new users isn't a meltdown, nor is thinning a bloated and | wasteful enterprise. Also, if twitter goes completely belly up, | Musk would still be worth hundreds of billions of dollars. | Grave? I'm game for some hyperbole, but not this early. | NaturalPhallacy wrote: | "Twitter usage is at an all-time high lol" | | November 7th: | https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589784134691741696 | | The questions are: can they monetize that, and will it | continue? But as far as twitter dying, the opposite is | currently true. It's never been more alive. | fleddr wrote: | You being downvoted just shows even this community prefers | emotional projections over simple facts. | | There is no Twitter meltdown. Before Musk it was already in | grave financial trouble and would have made 800m$ cuts | anyway. Musk most certainly is clumsy in his actions and | communications, but Twitter isn't going anywhere. | | Likewise, Facebook isn't having a meltdown either. There's a | dent in ad spent against a backdrop of 2 years of dramatic | overhiring (same as Google, Stripe). | | There's a 4% decline in revenue on a 27 billion quarterly | revenue. Meltdown? There's a handful of companies on this | planet being this profitable. | roflyear wrote: | Financially twitter is in a rough spot. They were not | really making money. Now they have loans to pay too. It | isn't in meltdown but certainly there are things to look at | there. Sure, Elon can keep it going for as long as he'd | like. But he's a fickle personality. I mean he went back | and forth several times just with buying the company. Who | knows if he'll lose interest. | fleddr wrote: | You're right, but Twitter basically has been in | continuous financial trouble since eternity. In 2016 they | almost went bankrupt. They tried to sell then but nobody | wanted it. Just before Musk they were also in financial | catastrophe mode. Under Musk, that will likely continue | for at least a year. It's a fundamentally unhealthy | businesses. | | I'd like to use a common Dutch expression to explain the | Twitter situation: "the soup isn't eaten as hot as it is | served". | | Musk wants absolute free speech but that's just a random | interview quote, not the actual plan for Twitter. Users | are abandoning the service in droves. No, they are not. A | handful of advertisers stop spending (conveniently part | of an economic downturn) but that doesn't mean the vast | majority do, or do so indefinitely. Twitter is an awful | place now, whilst he hasn't implemented a single change | yet. Checkmarks will get decimated whilst his original | unhinged idea is already dialed back. | | Everybody's jumping on all kinds of hysterical | projections that are not supported by the facts. There is | no meltdown. | roflyear wrote: | Yup, they are worse off in some ways, and better in | others. There is a lot of upsides with having a single | person like this calling all the shots, and love him or | hate him Musk has been successful in the past. | paxys wrote: | Zuck is doing first ever mass layoffs for a company he started | from his dorm room 18 years ago and grew to a ~trillion dollar | valuation. | | Musk is following the standard playbook of private equity | takeover + gutting the company to squeeze out remaining profits | and then sell for parts. There is no question of even a bit of | emotion involved from his side. | synergy20 wrote: | In 2000, some Hi Tech companies laid off 50%, e.g. Motorola, Meta | now has 1 out of 8 laid off, seems a lot, might not be enough in | the end though. | pelasaco wrote: | Bad Musk /s | taylorius wrote: | Correct me if I'm wrong, but if 11,000 employees is 13% of Meta's | workforce, that implies they employ close to 100,000 people? | Excuse me while I involuntarily spit my coffee over my keyboard. | temp0826 wrote: | Yeesh. Was planning on returning to tech work after a couple year | hiatus in a couple months. Between this and twitter there may be | some competition (: | clavalle wrote: | Perhaps. And perhaps some will go and create their own | companies and create more demand. | rybosworld wrote: | It's wild to me that a CEO can simultaneously take responsibility | for the decision to over hire, and also suffer none of the | financial consequences. In fact, META stock is up 7% on this | news, so Zuck has made money on this decision. | | I think that's a major inefficiency in modern corporations. | Executives are the last to face consequences when they make a bad | decision. | Invictus0 wrote: | Zucc's net worth is down more than $100B? Should he lose an arm | too? | bsaul wrote: | if you think stock up means zuck made money for this (good) | decision, then you've got to admit stock being down 50% during | the last year was zuck loosing money based on his previous | (bad) decisions.. | lbriner wrote: | Sad but completely unsurprising. People should realise by now | that when a company starts a massive hiring boom, it will | inevitably bust. Why? Because as many have said already, if you | have tonnes of cash, it is easier to hire loads of people rather | than hire appropriate and effective people. | | The fact that we are talking about such an enormous number just | shows how many people are part of the hive but probably not | really contributing much to the company overall. | | The worst part is that some people who _are_ really effective | will get caught up in the layoffs paying for the inefficiency of | corporate structures. | sidcool wrote: | As much as I dislike Meta's practices, this was well handled. | Decent severance and support. | cmsonger wrote: | I thought so too. They did not have to be so generous. | housingisaright wrote: | Depends how you look at it. I think they are well aware of | their reputation and probably does not want to make it any | worse. | tumetab1 wrote: | Allowing access to email until the end of day also seems an | improvement over other US companies practices | | > We made the decision to remove access to most Meta systems | for people leaving today given the amount of access to | sensitive information. But we're keeping email addresses active | throughout the day so everyone can say farewell. | fleddr wrote: | It's honestly pretty risky. I imagine quite a lot of | confidential information is in email. | bombcar wrote: | Local caches etc make that risk already extant. | optymizer wrote: | There's some discussion and code in email, but most of it | is on Workplace. We don't use email much. I have 32500 | unread emails. | YeBanKo wrote: | They may archive old emails and allow only new email be | sent/read. | phonebucket wrote: | > We don't use email much. I have 32500 unread emails. | | That many unreads makes it sound like everyone is using | emails except you! | pcurve wrote: | Companies have email content scanner that detect business | sensitive information. They work pretty well. | ct0 wrote: | At my org I cant even send my own SSN that's embedded on | a zipped PDF. I too was surprised how well they work. | sebdufbeau wrote: | Might be wrong, but isn't the workaround to this usually | just putting a password on the .zip file? | TecoAndJix wrote: | My guess is all email activity for the remainder of the | time will be closely monitored and audited by their | security/compliance team | brailsafe wrote: | This is why you need real friends outside your workplace. | When you get shoved out the door, at most your get the | afternoon to be like "lets keep in touch!" | buggythebug wrote: | As a non-tech guy who follows the tech scene: | | 87000 people to run Facebook sounds a little ridiculous. | | These tech companies sounds like colleges these days where the | number of administrators has grown 10X and the amount of teachers | has stayed the same. | | Use your money to hire people that directly contribute to your | product. Use profits to "do good" after. | rjh29 wrote: | They managed with 7,000 in 2013. But a lot of things changed. | | To continue to grow they needed to buy Facebook and Instagram. | They scaled up their infrastructure - lots of system | administrators. They needed more sales people and corporate | campaign managers to get advertising in. More moderation, | because governments started passing internet content laws. Spam | detection. Customer support. Automated content blocking. More | legal teams, because they are constantly under legal attack. | Don't forget all these laws and what is acceptable or not | changes by country - so they need a team in every country to | handle that. Then there's VR, Meta AI, the 'Metaverse', and | their whole R&D division. | adamsb6 wrote: | I left Facebook in March after having worked there for seven | years. | | It was always a struggle to hire enough engineers to accomplish | my team's goals, and it only got worse as time went on. We | didn't have a terrible on-call or terrible team morale, we just | tended to lose out to teams working on more visible projects. | We could have doubled our headcount and still had a backlog of | impactful work we couldn't get to. | sidcool wrote: | Facebook I believe does a lot of things, including their own | infrastructure. | vxNsr wrote: | it's not just facebook... they have oculus, insta, whatsapp, | they were exploring mapping, and self driving cars at one | point... | krn wrote: | When you realize that WhatsApp had 450 million monthly active | users and only 55 employees at the time of its acquisition by | Facebook in 2014, you start to think that those tens of | thousands of employees might be more needed for Meta's ad | business. | whatever1 wrote: | WhatsApp was bloated for what it was. Just a chatting app. | People design and implement these things in a weekend. | | Many interviews casually ask you to implement a chatting | app. By yourself. | rjh29 wrote: | Not true. WhatsApp performed exceptionally well for its | scale. The team was very talented and experienced at | writing optimised code. | | But I agree that Facebook is significantly larger in | scope. | ninth_ant wrote: | It's not just that they wrote some very optimized code -- | though it's true they did. They also designed the app in | a way that requires very little server infrastructure | compared to other chat apps, especially in the per- | acquisition days. | | For example, they didn't store contacts/images/messages | server-side as you see in Telegram, Google | ChatAppOfTheWeek, FB messenger, Twitter, IG, etc. All the | infrastructure and the folks required to develop and | maintain it, simply didn't exist. Similar with the | limited amount of data collection they did at the time -- | if you don't log it you there is no reason to have a team | of people to analyze it. If you don't have ads you don't | need an ad sales team. Etc. | phyrex wrote: | Scale matters | danielunited wrote: | As far as I'm aware most of the people who've lost their jobs | were headhunters. Makes sense to let them go now that FB | stopped hiring. | eschneider wrote: | I'm old and this is the third time around for these sorts of | layoffs in tech. (Was around for dot-com bust of 2000-ish and | financial meltdown post-2008.) One thing you want to keep in mind | is that decent severance packages are usually only a thing for | the FIRST round of layoffs. There will be more, and the payouts | will be a LOT worse. Just, FYI. | commandlinefan wrote: | > There will be more, and the payouts will be a LOT worse | | Yep, was with a company that went out of business slowly - I | was one of the last 10 employees to be let go (on the day the | company officially went out of business). The first round of | layoff severance was something like 6 months of salary. By the | time they got down to the last of us, it was two weeks. | H8crilA wrote: | I'm close to deciding to go back to University to get some | additional education that's likely to improve my work in the | future. I can afford it without any salary. Based on your | experience, do you think this is the right moment to do so? I'm | employed at the moment. | typeofhuman wrote: | What are you going to pursue? | | If you're looking for income growth and are already in | professional position making decent money it's almost never | worth it to go back to school. | [deleted] | taude wrote: | This was common on what a lot of people did when the dot-com | era crashed to an end. Almost all my software engineering | friends went to grad school, most for their MBAs and law | degrees, a few stayed their course in software engineering | and bit-twiddling. | boringg wrote: | If you look back at those people who went to switch into | mba - did it pan out for them? | greenhearth wrote: | From personal experience school is much better (and more fun) | later in life, especially if you're genuinely interested in | what it is you are studying. If you can afford it, or even | better - get your company to pay, it's definitely worthwhile. | You may have to pace yourself, as taking on a lot of credits | and full-time work at the same time is not easy. | cableshaft wrote: | I did that after I got laid off early 2009, although for me | it was going back to finish my bachelors. | | Spent two years in school and got to sit out the worst of the | recession. However, (in the US) tuition increased a ton from | when I first went to school and has only gotten more | ridiculous since I graduated. | | Personally I'm glad I did it, it just took a while to pay it | all off. | sillysaurusx wrote: | If you're going in order to get education that you personally | want, now seems like the best time. The economy will recover | and you'll be able to get back in later. | | If you're going because you think it'll give you better work | opportunities later, I suggest thinking carefully about that. | You're already in your field. Even if you're in an adjacent | field but still in tech, you can usually transition -- I've | been a gamedev, worked in finance, been a pentester, and now | I do ML. The question of whether I had a degree came up | exactly once, very early in my career. | | Academia can be a good fit if you're going for the right | reasons. Make sure you research what life is like at that | university, and plan out what you hope to get from it and | where you want to be five years from now. | yarky wrote: | Great advice! Where do you see more opportunities in the | near future, ML? | dimitrios1 wrote: | The really high paying jobs of the future (well, and | really now to be honest) are going to be some sort of | combination of Data Science + Speciality Science. Think | biomedical engineering, material scientist, chemist, any | engineering discipline because the thing we need the most | right now are better medicines and antibiotics against | the rising threat of resistant bacteria, COVID showed us | we still don't have a shot against a really bad virus, we | need better batteries, better power generation, better | cars and modes of transportation, etc. | | What we don't need any more of is web cruft and CRUD | apps, social networks, and people figuring out more ways | to mine our data and shove ads in our face. | logifail wrote: | > What we don't need any more of is web cruft and CRUD | apps, social networks, and people figuring out more ways | to mine our data and shove ads in our face | | (No snark intended, my background is in science...) | | The fields that would benefit society the most are not | typically the fields where the most money is to be made. | computomatic wrote: | Nothing interesting will be reliably funded over the next | 5-ish years given the current macroeconomics. | | If we're talking about where the opportunities (jobs) are | going to be, then you're probably looking at tech roles | within non-tech companies. These companies have been | dying to modernize but haven't been able to hire | engineers due to the tech bubble. | | After that, tooling that enables non-technical companies | to build software - whatever that looks like. | refurb wrote: | I've been through 3 lays offs years ago and after the 2nd one I | got pretty good at predicting the 3rd. It's basically a cookie | cutter approach. | | Watch out for emails that talk about "tough decisions" and | "respect for our people". I actually took a company email, | printed it and highlighted key statements and told everyone lay | offs were coming. About 6 months later they were formally | announced. | agotterer wrote: | Maybe less relevant now that a lot of companies are still | remote. In the past when a company cuts back on office perks, | such as snacks, it's often a leading indicator of financial | issues and possible looming cuts. | refurb wrote: | Yup, or reducing janitorial staff, or talking about | extending payment terms for suppliers. All canaries in the | coal mine. | H8crilA wrote: | Or just read the 10-Q and 10-K reports and see the | revenue (in your part of the org, if separated) go down. | truthwhisperer wrote: | IronWolve wrote: | Correct, Take the first round of payouts, always. | | Almost every 10+ years a mega company buys the company I'm | working for and lays off everyone. The first time I stayed on | and didnt take the layoff with my group, was going to merge | into the new company. Then after a year, was let go and didnt | get the big layoff package, then my manager left. | | Totally screwed out of a major layoff package as it was a year | later, way past the laws for mass layoffs, was a mistake to | stay on, they kept me long enough they only had to let me go | under new terms, then promptly closed the group (me and my | manager). I was the most senior and long term employee, they | saved a bucket load to screw me over. | chipgap98 wrote: | I'm not saying there won't be more layoffs, but I don't think | this advice makes sense for people at places like Meta. They | are generating a ton of revenue and profit even with the | current economic conditions. | PaulHoule wrote: | In the case of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg has set the controls | for the heart of the Sun. It has no future because Zuck | will lose everything in the quest for a product nobody | wants. | sicp-enjoyer wrote: | You're just not the target of the product. | PaulHoule wrote: | Have you heard anybody say anything positive about | _Horizon Worlds_? | | If you believe that Superbowl commercial for _Horizon | Worlds_ is representative of what they think the market | is it for people who feel like they are over the hill, | the best is behind them, and they can recapture what it | was like to live back in the day? (Is that you Zuck?) | | I am very interested in getting a VR headset to help with | some 3D GFX development I do, I like the Oculus hardware | but I nuked my Facebook account a long time ago so it's | not for me. I game plenty too but I try only to play | games that are fun. (I am a little vulnerable to grindy | RPGs, my son will smack me if he catches me...) | supernova87a wrote: | > _Zuck will lose everything in the quest for a product | nobody wants_. | | Quest, no pun intended? | emptysongglass wrote: | There's actually a bunch of us who do want it. I work in | VR 5 hours a day. It's the dream for me. | PaulHoule wrote: | There is VR and there is the Meta version of it. One can | succeed despite the other, in fact, the Meta version of | VR endangers the success of VR in general. Specifically, | Zuck is working overtime and spending his shareholders | money to convince people that VR is somewhere between | Axie Infinity and watching paint dry. | | Most of the VR advocates I know are no fan of Meta: | | https://www.youtube.com/c/ThrillSeekerVR | | What is missing from Zuck's vision is any of the | understanding that can be had from or had about fiction. | If he was willing to listen he should take a sabbatical | and go watch _Ready Player One_ and all of the _Sword Art | Online_ anime and then he should buy a Switch or a PS5 | and get a serious gaming habit. At some point he might | get some insight about virtual worlds that aren 't just a | pale shadow of the real world but rather a place you | might really want to work or play in. | david927 wrote: | Not to be contentious but some people may ask, "How much of | that revenue is real?" and, "How much of it is inelastic?" | vegetablepotpie wrote: | Let's say you are an employee at a company that does mass | layoffs. They do not lay you off like everyone else and keep | you on. What is the best course of action to take at that | point? | Consultant32452 wrote: | When this happens I'm always expected to take on more work | without a commensurate raise. That's why I always leave. | ouid wrote: | I dont know the law here, but it seems you can ask to | review your contract, and insist that they include a | minimum employment term or guarantee a severance package. | They have two ways to say no. They can fire you then, in | which case you get the severance, or you're free to look | for another job in the period before they're no longer | legally obligated to give you severance. | | It seems that you should take as much advantage as possible | of your legal status. | eschneider wrote: | Well, if you're in a 'critical' position and you want to | take a more 'wait and see' approach, retention bonuses are | usually a thing for folks they don't want to lose in a | first-round layoff. You approach that conversation like so, | "I really love it here, but with the layoffs and | uncertainty..." | eschneider wrote: | Ask for a retention bonus. | eschneider wrote: | If you have any doubts about the company, you probably want | to get serious about your job search. | kevstev wrote: | To expand on why, what often happens after these is there | now a round of "cost cutting" which on the surface may | look like ok we just don't get as many, or any of the | cool perks we used to- which will be true, and you will | suddenly realize that work doesn't feel like it has a fun | aspect to it anymore. But that's really nothing compared | to the next step- when they start squeezing you- and | everyone for more hours. | | And more hours may not be a direct request- anyone at the | periphery of the dev process- in the past this was QA, | now gets cut because devs can do it, SWE roles might have | to start doing more ops work, etc... | | When I last left the financial industry, it was so bad, | that VPs- and that was back when it least had some | meaning- at least it did when I first got the title | around 2010, started having to do mundane weekend work | like checking out the system after network/firewall | changes, etc. | | It can be death by a thousand cuts. Now the financial | crisis was way worse because essentially everyone was | hurting, and losing money- and interestingly I "got out" | of that bad situation by going to tech. But that's just | how these bad situations play out and deteriorate. | | That said, companies are still profitable. There was a | LOT of overhiring in the past few years. I don't expect | things to get so bad, at all. | Bluecobra wrote: | I'd start looking for a new job. | ransom1538 wrote: | As a recruiter told me, "I can add your resume to the | pile." There are too many resumes in circulation right | now. | smcl wrote: | I wonder if this mean a dearth of positions (i.e. a tech | downturn is fully underway) or simply loads of applicants | and enough open positions, but the recruiters are a bit | inundated by the sudden influx and it'll take time to | sort things out. | | Either way I hope those laid off land on their feet. | ptero wrote: | Prep hard. My 2c below, not trying to tell you how to live | life :) | | 1. Review your finances. How long can you skip work without | feeling financially stressed? This should include full | expenses (medical insurance, family, etc.) and will | determine the level of risk you can comfortably take with | your job. | | If you have 5+ years of cushion you can take a lot of risk. | Even if the job market and your company both collapse you | can downshift for a year or two and work on a new tech as a | personal project. Droughts seldom last more than a couple | of years. If you have less than 3 months of cushion, look | for the lowest risk options (a strongest company you can | work for) and try to build it up. | | 2. Decide whether you expect your current company to do | well with the reduced headcount. If your company is | publicly traded, read financial statements and analyst | opinions try joining an investor call. Look at the outside | information, not the HR infomercials. | | If the company is expected to do well you can stay. Layoffs | in strong companies often mean shakeouts beyond actual | layoffs (teams merging and forming, etc.) and you might | even be able to move to a better spot. If the company is in | trouble, start looking for other options ASAP. | | 3. Learn what is the job market for your skills and if any | adjacent areas have significantly better prospects (if so, | buff up your skills). This can change quickly. Talk to your | tech friends, especially those in hiring manager spots, to | figure out if they are hiring/frozen/RIFfing. | robocat wrote: | > If you have 5+ years of cushion you can take a lot of | risk. | | In my own experience I think this is a dangerous | attitude: anny other HNers out there that thought this | and failed, maybe add a comment about your own | experience? | | I thought I had cushion. However that attitude led to me | reseting my equity to zero when I was about 30, and it | took more than a decade of my life before I felt like I | was starting to recover. | | Perhaps sometimes we had some luck, so we get some | savings, and we then think "that was easy, I could do | that again" and try something risky. But the environment | or our circumstances have changed, and we can't always | replicate our past. | | The other aspect is that I think we underestimate risk: | for example when I was younger I would think creating a | business worth a million dollars would be unbelievably | great. Now I see that opportunity costs of a $X00,000 | loss of income require a 10x return ($X million) to | _break even_ (to only just cover your risks). Also you | need wayyyy more return than 10x to cover the fact that | your time investment is not diversified: a 10x return on | a game you can only play a few times is a massive gamble | that you end up with nothing. You don't want to end up | with nothing after say 40, because the world starts to | randomly switch into extremely-hard-mode sometime after | ~40 (and everybody is unaware they were playing on easy- | mode until after the switch changes). | ptero wrote: | I wonder if we are talking about different risks. If I | may ask, in your case did you go through your savings | over several years by using it for regular living | expenses or by pursuing a business/investment idea? | | I have seen people go from a good sized bank account to | zero quickly by buying something expensive (a house, a | boat, etc.) or by trying to start a business. One can | always lose money on risky investments or outright | gambling. | | But I have never seen someone deplete a 5-year savings by | downshifting for a period of time. I was talking about | the second case: I do not have to worry about losing a | job if I have 5+ years of living expenses. If I lose my | job and have to cool heels for a year, so be it; there | are still have 4+ years of cushion. My 2c. | iLoveOncall wrote: | Looking for a new job. | | The advice to "take the first layoff" is weird, you rarely | have a choice, if ever. | eschneider wrote: | The advice isn't so much "take the first layoff", it's | "next time will be worse." | lumost wrote: | If you say that you aren't plussed, then they will | probably lay you off to. | sidewndr46 wrote: | It depends on where you work. But I've definitely been at | a place where the first email was "we've decided to | reduce staff in key functions, please read the attached | offering and submit directly to your manager". This was a | reasonably generous package, in one case health benefits | would be maintained for nearly a year even if you had | only worked there 3 years. | | The next round was a security guy waiting in your office | with a box and a packet of information about how to apply | for unemployment. | stanmancan wrote: | The last job I had they offered very generous buy out | packages to a few thousand employees to lower the head | count. We got to decide if we took it or not. id you | accepted they would then figure out your exit date which | could be anywhere from 2 weeks to 12 months out depending | on company needs. | gangstead wrote: | I don't know if it's an industry specific thing but my | parents worked for big defense contractors and they would | often talk about layoffs in conjunction with offers that | people could take to leave voluntarily. Always signed | crazy to me. My mom took one in 99, worked private | industry for a couple years then came back to defense | after the dot com crash for way more money. | jaredandrews wrote: | True but there are exceptions. At a previous job of mine, | layoffs were happening and my manager was tasked with | laying off one member of my team. He sat us in a room and | told us about it and the severance package and basically | asked for a volunteer. A more senior engineer volunteered | and went on his way with a good chunk of cash. | | Oh how I wish I had volunteered cuz a year later | basically everyone including me had quit anyway. | satysin wrote: | Ask if there are VRIF (voluntary reduction in force) | options open to you. Most of the time there are unless you | have some kind of "special" status. | | I've never known a company that is in the process of | layoffs not jumping at the chance to VRIF an employee | because it is a far cleaner termination and honestly less | stressful and upsetting for all involved IMHO. | noobermin wrote: | But isn't there an incentive not to do it given the | payout they'd have to pay for someone so senior? | satysin wrote: | In my personal experience some random senior employee | isn't even pennies on the dollar when it comes to the | total amount factored into the layoffs that are in the | hundreds of millions. | | The bigger factor is are you in a position that requires | the company longer to replace you? If so you may just be | in that shit position of being kept on another 6 months | until the next round of layoffs and get a package half as | good. | | As the first poster said always get out first if you can | as the packages never get better the worse a company | does. | | Never fool yourself into thinking you're too amazing to | be let go and that is why you 'survived' this round of | layoffs. The worst case is as I said, you are too good to | be let go of _yet_. | mywittyname wrote: | Keeping them around is expensive too. | alecbz wrote: | But if the senior person is in a role that the company | ultimately wants staffed, they're going to need to hire | someone else to replace them, who will be new and less | effective? (Though OTOH, given the current macro, maybe | they can get away with paying the replacement less?) | breischl wrote: | In general you're probably right. Though once upon a time | I tried to volunteer about three different times and | never managed to get a package. At one point my manager | literally said "Shut up, you're not getting laid off so | quit asking!" | alecbz wrote: | I'd be nervous about asking this unless I'm 100% | committed to leaving the company, even if they say "no". | Otherwise, you ask, they say "no", but now you've | signaled that you're not especially invested in staying | at the company, which feels like a negative thing to | signal if you're interested in staying. | | (edit: The idea being that you might get fired "normally" | as a result, and not get generous severance.) | joenot443 wrote: | You don't need to ask your manager, why not go to HR and | stress that this is a sensitive topic you don't want | making back to your team? No guarantee they'll honor your | privacy, but I'd say it's worth a shot. | paledot wrote: | HR. Is. Not. Your. Friend. | satysin wrote: | This 100%. | | HR is there to protect the company. Sometimes that aligns | with protecting the employee but when shit hits the fan | ask yourself does HR work for you or for the company? | | I know I sound a bit 'down' saying that but it is an | unfortunate reality that companies are not very loyal to | their employees when times get tough. | kcplate wrote: | This is sage advice here. Never fall into the trap that | HR is your advocate, despite what they tell you. | eschneider wrote: | You do that and there will be an email describing the | conversation in your boss' inbox before you get back to | your desk. | modriano wrote: | In my experience, HR may act kind, but they are 100% | aligned with the company and not you. Giving them a | signal that you're open to leaving at a time when they're | trying to reduce the cost of resources that are human is | a terrible idea if you aren't looking to leave. | | Find a trusted friend in the company who is a survivor | and ask them. Survivors have strong information networks | for office politics and know such info. | marcus0x62 wrote: | That would almost certainly make it back to the person's | direct manager or 2nd-level manager (director, VP, | whatever.) | NickRandom wrote: | This nervousness is what companies rely on to keep the | ship steady during massive lay-offs. | | In other words that same company that in its heyday | relied on the person pulling an all-nighter 'for the good | of the company' yet failed to ever offer a reciprocal | 'sure, take all the paid time off you need buddy' in | return gets what it earned. | | Although you may hear the 'rats from a sinking ship' and | 'you're deserting the company and leaving your colleagues | to pick up the slack' shrieked from on down high by | management - Fuck 'em. They didn't actually give a shit | about you on the way up and they don't give a shit about | you on the way down. | | Jump fast, jump early, beat the pack | alecbz wrote: | I don't at all mean that I feel guilty about abandoning | the company or anything like that, I'm saying this 100% | from a place of selfishness. Wherever I am, I want my | manager to think I'm engaged, I want to seem like a team- | player. I worry that otherwise, I won't do as well at | perf, I won't get put on interesting/meaningful work, | I'll be relegated to the side and not feel as integrated | into the team. | | It's possible some of these are unfounded/exaggerated | fears, though? | | If you're 100% set on leaving with or without severance, | for sure ask. But if you think you might prefer to stay | if severance isn't an option, asking feels risky. | neltnerb wrote: | I think what you are describing is both a reasonable | worry and also exactly the kind of ambiguity the company | encourages. You have no leverage if you're unwilling to | leave, and it's foolish to initiate a discussion like | that from a position of dependency. | | I'm not suggesting issuing ultimatums, of course, I'm | just suggesting that you mentally prepare for needing to | quit first, otherwise it takes a real pro to have that | conversation. I know I'm not good enough to do it unless | I talk about things like that with my manager regularly | already. | | I do wonder if these are questions you can ask | confidentially in a different way. Like I dunno how big | your place is but you might find this information easily | in a meeting with HR, but HR is there to help the company | (not you) so it depends on their priorities a lot. It's a | very reasonable thing to wonder about when tens of | thousands of people just got laid off from similar | positions... I'd think a reasonable manager or HR person | would understand that. But I certainly can't argue that | managers and HR people are all reasonable! | User23 wrote: | Don't volunteer to quit if you're not willing to lose | your job is sound advice, even if it's a bit on the | obvious side. | | Even in an economic downturn an engineer with Meta on | their resume is going to be well positioned to find | employment inside of the three months or more pay and six | month insurance runway this deal provides. | satysin wrote: | So don't ask if you want to stay. | | Having said that, if you're going to be worried about | possibly/probably losing your job 6 months down the road | what does it really matter if you have signalled you're | not very invested in staying? The company has signalled | they're not very invested either is how I look at it. | | >(edit: The idea being that you might get fired | "normally" as a result, and not get generous severance.) | | Of course I am saying this as someone in Europe where | firing someone "normally" is a lot more complicated and | time consuming and comes with a whole list of other | issues a company needs to make sure they manage properly. | They can't just turn round and fire you with no pay | because you "showed you were not very invested in the | company as you asked if you could be let go when we were | letting go of several thousand people". That is a 100% | guaranteed legal hell hole no company likes to be in by | choice. | | In America perhaps that is something you genuinely need | to worry about I don't know. | alecbz wrote: | You're definitely not going to get fired for that on its | own. Maybe I'm over-estimating how much this ends up | mattering. But I think it can matter in other small ways | too that can negatively effect your career growth. | pjc50 wrote: | Once the redundancies have started, the clock is running: | you no longer _have_ career growth at that company. You | need to start planning your next career move elsewhere. | alecbz wrote: | I don't think this is categorically true... you think | _all_ the companies that have recently announced layoffs | are basically sinking ships? | pjc50 wrote: | But it does mean your options for promotion and salary | increase are clearly limited. And in tech there's strong | evidence that more career development happens when you | move companies than within a company. | | You may find there's nowhere better to go, but switching | to "looking externally" rather than "looking internally" | for new jobs is definitely a good idea. | alecbz wrote: | > You may find there's nowhere better to go | | Yeah that's kinda the rub right now though. Everyone's | frozen, tons are laying off. If the only information you | have is "my company did a layoff", it's not clear you're | better off looking externally vs. internally vs. staying | on your current team. | | One bad case is you leave your company that just did a | layoff for one that has yet to do one (but will need to | soon). | satysin wrote: | I understand your concerns and certainly don't mean to | minimise them, this is just my personal experience and | opinion after all :) | | Do what you feel comfortable with at the end of the day. | My original reply was meant as one possible answer that I | have seen first hand to work well for both parties. | | I will add as another personal opinion though that I very | rarely see people that choose to stay at a company going | though layoffs hanging around very long. | | More often than not those people experience a | 'depression' (for want of a better word that escapes me | as I write this) seeing their friends leave, not having | the freedom the had back in the "good old days", little | if any progression, the constant "sorry not this quarter, | we're still recovering from the layoffs", living in | constant anxiety that they will be in the next round of | layoffs, etc. So they often leave within a year or two | anyway. | | Over the years I have played this game and now I am a bit | more proactive about exiting before that 'depression' | hits me. Of course what is right for me is not right for | all, only you can truly decide what you feel is best | given your situation. | washywashy wrote: | Are employees able to "take" a layoff even if they don't | receive an email telling them they are among the affected | group? | WanderPanda wrote: | I was wondering about this as well, would be nice if | someone could clarify! | [deleted] | ciropantera wrote: | The writing is usually on the wall for a while before the | layoff actually happens, so there's time for you to let | your manager know that you wouldn't mind getting the | boot. | crims0n wrote: | It depends on the company and situation. Sometimes they | ask for volunteers and you can request the package, most | times you don't get a choice. | [deleted] | madengr wrote: | kasey_junk wrote: | Not usually in layoffs. In acquisitions or for old | fashioned pension based companies sometimes there are | voluntary "buyouts" which look like that. | francisofascii wrote: | Sometimes voluntary buyouts are offered before the layoffs. | And they typically will make it seem like the buyout option | will have better terms than the eventual severance package, | to entice people to take it rather than risk getting fired | down the road. | washywashy wrote: | Yeah this is what I've seen at previous companies. | Basically, they need enough headcount for it to not | eventually proceed to full layoffs. It actually seems | beneficial if you meet the tenure requirements, are still | relatively young, and have a good network. I saw several | people make out like bandits from those types of | offerings. | marcus0x62 wrote: | Yep. I knew several people at a previous employer who got | 1 year full pay packages and had a new job lined up | within a week. One guy took an early retirement package, | worth probably $250k at the time, left for two years and | worked at a startup for a while, then came back and | within 18 months took ANOTHER early retirement package. | gwbas1c wrote: | In situations like this, it's usually too late. | | Sometimes voluntary layoffs are announced, but really you | need to be able to read between the lines and smell that | something is coming before the layoff is announced. (The | reason is that layoffs are usually kept confidential | because no one wants to incite panic.) | | What I did a few years ago was have a 1-1 with a VP and | basically implied that I was ready to do something | different. I ended up with a great severance package right | as the pandemic was taking off. | sidewndr46 wrote: | I've never understood why people in middle management | seem to be blindsided by layoffs. I've even listened to a | manager tell the CEO this. Are they that oblivious they | can't see the writing on the wall? Or is it all just a | weird act? | afterburner wrote: | You don't get to be middle management by NOT doing a | weird act all the time | htrp wrote: | If you're pretty close with your Director/VP, you can | volunteer to be first on the list. Frame it as a sacrifice | that you're willing to make to spare another member of your | team. | johnvanommen wrote: | It was petty, but I worked with a dude who got fired for | doing that. | | When he volunteered to get laid off (with the intention | of getting a severance), the person he said that to fired | him on the spot for "not being a team player." | | Eventually, every last one of us were laid off. But it | took six months and I used the time to find a new role | and I also received a four month severance. | hnfong wrote: | The "If you're pretty close with your Director/VP" part | is probably important :) | sigzero wrote: | Good advice, I have done this and it has worked. | pjmlp wrote: | I have been through a couple of merges and layoffs, it taught | me that what matters is loyaty to the team, employer not so | much. | paxys wrote: | It depends. In a lot of layoffs your manager themselves will | find out the same morning and will have no say in the | decision. | pjmlp wrote: | Direct line managers are still part of the team. | yarky wrote: | Do you mind to elaborate a bit? | pjmlp wrote: | Others have pretty much covered the matter, you will always | bump into former team mates, or it will be thanks to them | that you will get some gig. | | Employers themselves usually look into spreadsheets with a | bunch of KPIs deciding who to lay off, without any regards | for the effort you have actually placed into the job. | [deleted] | boringg wrote: | If your team lead can protect you they will but the | employer at large is rather indifferent. Also further in | your career those relationships to your team mean a fair | bit while who you worked for as a company might not make | that much difference. | JackFr wrote: | I've gone back to work for a manger who laid me off. There | were literally no hard feelings. | | When he laid me off it was clear that he had to hit a hard | headcount number, and I knew the project I was working on | was "discretionary". The HR meeting was "this is a | headcount reduction and not a reflection on your work. Have | a lawyer look over your severance and please accept or | decline it within a week." Really quite professional. | [deleted] | didip wrote: | If you have decent skills and reputation, the manager or | team lead may bring you over to the new company (if such | opportunity is there). | | But the company itself couldn't care less about anyone | working there. | anthomtb wrote: | I survived two rounds of layoffs in 2008/2009 and they went as | you describe. The first round had significantly better | benefits. Which, ironically, ended up going to the worst | performers. | | That said, the company where I experienced the layoffs was | losing money and the first layoff was 2-3% of the workforce. | Meta is still quite profitable and they are axing well over 10% | of their employees. I would think another big round of layoffs | is unlikely unless Meta has a bunch of debt coming due or the | macro conditions REALLY go in the crapper (and there sure are a | lot of doomsayers out there). | [deleted] | curiousllama wrote: | Are you referring to rounds at the same company, or rounds | across the economy? | eschneider wrote: | Rounds at the same company. | marcus0x62 wrote: | Not the OP, but what I've experienced is severance packages | get worse across rounds at a single company. A previous | employer started at 1 year pay / benefits, then six months, | then six weeks + two weeks per year of service. | cableshaft wrote: | Then you have corporations like the previous one I worked | at, which had a terrible 1 week pay per year you've worked | there, capped at 4 weeks pay. | | I know someone who had worked there for 17 years that got | laid off and only got 4 weeks because of it. | | They never got around to laying me off, I ended up quitting | much later than I should have. | marcus0x62 wrote: | That really puts loyalty towards your employer into | perspective, doesn't it? | throwaway2037 wrote: | I read it as same company. | mrits wrote: | I'm not sure comparing a company with $28 billion Q3 revenue to | .com bubble makes much sense. | marcus0x62 wrote: | During the dot com bubble even companies with massive (for | the time) revenue did huge layoffs. Cisco was probably the | poster child for that. | johnvanommen wrote: | I helped a friend move after she was laid off, a couple | years after the dot com bubble popped. One of the eeriest | things was seeing all those shiny new buildings in Silicon | Valley, sitting empty. | | It was like 15% of the businesses just evaporated. | | It was a Cisco building in particular that I remember. | | I was over on that street recently and everything is | occupied again, though many of the names have changed. | marcus0x62 wrote: | When I left Cisco in 2014, some of those buildings were | still practically empty. | eyear wrote: | Not necessarily: I know companies paid 2 weeks/year in the | first round and 3 weeks/year in the second round a year later. | bagels wrote: | Sounds like everyone got a weak deal. | dboreham wrote: | Except the _very_ last round, where you 're the person left to | handle sale of IP and so forth. Then they'll pay you well to | stick around for a few months doing nothing. | tootie wrote: | This is going to be a repeat of 2000, not 2008. There's | seemingly no contagion and no secular stagnation. This is just | unwinding of the cheap money era that flowed overwhelmingly | into SV. You'll see a cooling off of red hot compensation, a | lot of failed startups that no one ever understood and the | ongoing crypto crash. This may end up being enough to trigger a | mild recession. | trashtester wrote: | It really depends on the Fed and the overall market. I would | say the economy is at a much greater risk now than in 2000, | for these reasons: | | We have several fundamental inflation factors - The | population is aging. A huge number of boomers are exiting the | workforce every year. - Unlike in Japan, this cohort of | people are likely to keep spending into their retirement, | including a huge spending on healthcare. - This time, we | don't have China to absorb the inflation. China is in the | same situation. Also, most jobs that could be easily exported | already have been. With the tech sector being a bit of an | exception. - The prices for all sorts of jobs being done by | people in their 60's will go up. This goes for everything | from hairdressers and plumbers to accountants and lawyers. | This will cause pressure on the salaries for these jobs, | raising costs. - Decades of low interest rates have created a | massive amount of cash (and cash-equivalent "value") in the | system. As investments go down, more will find its way to | consumption, driving prices up. - During the Covid lockdowns, | many countries discovered that plenty of goods were becoming | scarce or unavailable. Local production facilities are being | built for anything from face masks and respirators to | integrated circuits both in the US and Europe. Trade barriers | and subsidies are used to support this. Local production will | be more expensive than 1-2 huge plants able to serve the | globe. - Covid also led to a mentality change, where employee | loyalty to employers took a big hit. Employees (especially | blue collared ones that can't WFH) that got laid off during | Covid will be more likely to switch jobs more often, driving | salaries and costs up. | | On top of this, the war in Ukraine adds these factors: - | Food, energy and fuel, as well as many minerals are scarce, | driving up the prices of everything. - Such items are added | to the list of goods western countries want to produce for | themselves. And in the case of food, places that experience | famine may switch back to food production over cash crops | over a longer term, as well. - Western countries have started | rebuilding their arms industries, sucking capital and labor | from other sectors. | | All-in-all, these factors lay the foundations for an | inflationary pressure that could exceed the 1970's. | | As central banks attempt to counter this by continuing to | raise rates, we get the following problems. - Anyone with a | variable or expiring interest rate will have their standard | of living going down from interest payments AND inflation. - | Huge swaths of people will demand that raises keep up with | inflation. Groups with skills that see increased demand will | get such raises, and possibly more. - In other sectors, | employers will not have the income to raise compensation at | the same rate. Employees in these sectors will become | increasingly unhappy. - People will start unionizing at a | greater rate than before. Especially in Europe, but also in | the US. - Most likely, we will see large numbers of massive | labor market conflicts, with strikes followed by lock-outs. - | Tensions between countries is also likely to rise (though the | war in Ukraine may mitigate that a bit, for as long as it | lasts) - These conflicts will damage the supply side of the | economy further, leading to even more inflation and a deeper | stagflation, in a vicious circle. | | In all of this, this is bad for any business without a | significant positive cash flow, including much of internet | "tech". Military "tech", on the other hand, may see a huge | boom, and the same may come for anyone able to contribute | within manufacturing or construction (such as through | robotics/AI). | solumunus wrote: | Mild recession? How are you not understanding the global | macro set up right now? Europe will see a ~10 year recession, | possibly the worst ever. America may fare better but there's | no way you're getting away with a "mild" recession. | alangibson wrote: | We're definitely bracing for impact around here. Where do | you get 10 years from though? | jamespo wrote: | Source: he made it up | staticman2 wrote: | How do you not understand that you have a contrarian take | on the economy? | hylaride wrote: | Predicting the future is hard, but the labour market is | still extremely tight, boomers are leaving the workforce | due to retirement, and there will probably be (attempts at) | on-shoring as the west tries to decouple from China. | | Europe will probably get its energy sorted in the medium | term with LNG, and they're going to need to build a lot of | damn nukes, but I don't think it'll be 10 years. | fortran77 wrote: | We didn't have inflation like this in 2000. I'm old enough to | remember the 70s | staticman2 wrote: | The 5 year breakeven inflation rate today is 2.61% Since | Treasury Inflation Protected Securities didn't exist in the | 70s we can't compare, but the market thinks inflation is | not going to continue like it did in the 70s. | songeater wrote: | There was a lot of commodity-inflation in the early 2000s, | the second biggest rise in commodity prices after the | 1970s[1]. Unlike the 70s (supply shock), this was primarily | a demand-pull out of China/Asia, so the net impact to the | economy was much more positive. | | [1] https://www.investing.com/indices/bloomberg-commodity | tsunamifury wrote: | CMBSs held by shadow banks with quarterly markdown accounting | -- with valuations linked to commercial leases. | swalsh wrote: | " mild recession" | | If we're lucky | mywittyname wrote: | We're like 2.5 years into one at this point and some people | still don't acknowledge it. A lot of people just keep | saying "we're heading into one." It's likely this one will | pass long before people come to a general consensus on | whether or not one really happened. | erehweb wrote: | The U.S. unemployment rate was 3.7% in October, and GDP | was up 2.6% annualized in 2022Q3. Why do you say we're in | a recession? | kevstev wrote: | If this is a recession, its not one I am feeling. 2008, | the .com bust, those were recessions that everyone felt | acutely. Unemployment is still at record lows. If the GDP | dial isn't where people would like it to be then fine, | but overall jobs are plentiful and no one I know is | scared like they have been during the previous | recessions. | hindsightbias wrote: | You'd almost think cities and metropolitan areas are being | thoughtful when avoiding the demands from those following the | latest gold rush. But surely, that would be an unpopular | opinion around here. | Aunche wrote: | Software engineering is far more saturated than it was in | 2000 and 2008. In 2008, Amazon, Apple, and Google all had a | seemingly endless room to grow. The iPhone, Android, AWS, and | video steaming were still in their infancy. There's nothing | like that right now. There are definitely a lot of exciting | innovations in ML and VR, but I think it will be a while | before these technologies find a mainstream consumer use | case. | matwood wrote: | Outside of big tech, every single company has been | struggling to hire. Companies hate to admit it, but every | company is a software company now. | magic_hamster wrote: | In 2000 some people still worked with paper rolodex. We | need to keep things in perspective. The world changed | massively in the last 20 years, everything is software and | software is almost everything. There are a lot of | contributing factors to this economy which are unrelated to | the actual demand and value of software. There will not be | an oversaturation of software engineering for a while to | come. | | If memory serves, Meta is cutting a lot of non tech jobs. | Engineers might lose their jobs if entire projects are | scrapped, but maybe a different position will be offered to | them. | | I hope that everyone is looking at Twitter and learning | what not do: no company wants to beg some engineers to come | back after being too quick to pull the trigger. | whydat_whodat wrote: | "Software engineering is far more saturated" | | What country are you referring to? I'm in the US-- the | market here seems quite strong according to the BLS: | | US Bureau of Labor Statistics-- Here are two examples, | followed by the general IT occupation growth description: | | - Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and | Testers | | --> Job Outlook, 2021-31 25% (Much faster than average) | | https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information- | technology/... | | - Information Security Analysts | | --> Job Outlook, 2021-31 35% (Much faster than average) | | https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information- | technology/... | | "Overall employment in computer and information technology | occupations is | | --> projected to grow 15 percent from 2021 to 2031, much | faster than the average for all occupations" | | https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information- | technology/... | hnfong wrote: | Even Mark Zuckerberg admitted to making the wrong | projections of tech growth per the article. What makes | you think these statistics are doing better? | renaudg wrote: | I was around in 2000. It had the failed startups but it | didn't have inflation, war, and a pandemic. | | Long Covid alone is going to hamper any economic recovery. | It's a mass disabling event. The sooner we recognize this and | start tackling it, the better : | https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-workforce-absenteeism- | pro... | boringg wrote: | Global macro is very different. This is going to be different | from both. | [deleted] | jollyllama wrote: | People act like there were no layoffs between 2010 and 2000 | but there were plenty, if you were in the wrong company | and/or the wrong sector. IBM comes to mind. There were still | CEOs out there trimming the fat while everyone else was | getting high on the hype. If you had exposure to this, you're | ready, at least emotionally, for what's going on now. If you | didn't, you're probably shellshocked right now. Don't worry, | you'll get used to it. | registeredcorn wrote: | I'm interested to hear your opinion: Do you have any thoughts | on the current way companies are valued/how they operate vs how | they were leading up to the 2000 crash? | | Personally, I see it as a cycle which appears to be repeating | itself, especially after re-reading The Intelligent Investors | assessment in the years after the 2000 crash, and comparing it | to some of the current offerings out there. I would be | interested to hear your perspective on the matter. | matwood wrote: | This is literally nothing like 2000 unless in you're in | something like crypto. Meta hired 30k+ people during covid | and they are correcting that over hire mistake. They are fine | financially. | | In 2000 entire companies were just disappearing. Companies | had gone public that had no business plan. 100s of millions | were thrown at companies who were gone in 12-18 months. | | Big tech, who are making dump trucks of money, laying some | people off is just part of the normal business cycle. | registeredcorn wrote: | Thanks for the response. :) | | Under what circumstance do you believe the current | landscape would be comparable to the 2000's era? Certainly, | I would hope that the same _kind_ of foolish behavior | wouldn 't reoccur, outside of a very specific set of | circumstances, but do you see any sort of _comparison_ | between the historical foolishness of the market, and the | wastes of money that have been devoted to things like, | Stadia, Zillow AI pricing, Quibi, WeWork, etc.? | | When I see the amount of money spent vs brought in by the | various big names out there (social networks, in | particular) I can't help but see a thing essentially worth | little outside of name recognition. I naturally assume it | to be a house of cards ready to collapse at some point, I | just can't really determine when or why that might be. | Perhaps not anytime soon, or to the extent that it would | have were it 2000, but certainly companies that has such a | noticeably poor ability to create profit, that it seems | assured to fail. | | I've certainly been wrong about such things in the past. | Twitter, for example, was a thing that I assumed around | 2008 or 2009, would never catch on, and that whatever | traction it had would fade within a few months. I had | similar assumptions with Netflix being "doomed to failure" | after they tried to split the steaming/DVD rental services. | I've been laughably wrong on each of those things, so it's | entirely possible that I'm just not appreciating that maybe | the world itself works has changed in a way that I haven't | grasped. I just don't see how tech companies which can't | manage to turn a profit, let alone offer predictable | income, are able to sustain longterm value investment. It | just seems like a hopeful anemic. | BurningFrog wrote: | Yeah, SV is never completely sane, but the Dot Com era was | truly mental bonkers. | gtsnexp wrote: | Where are tech jobs heading in the United States and globally? | Who (or what industry) is absorbing all these folks? I think the | current landscape merits one of these prediction style threads on | HN. | Zanneth wrote: | Still mostly staying in Silicon Valley. Plenty of companies are | still hiring. Laid off Meta employees with good skills will not | have problems finding another job in the same area. | [deleted] | Simon_O_Rourke wrote: | I know a couple of my European friends were bitterly disappointed | to be kept on, over there you get a nice little exit package | mandated in law. | nomilk wrote: | > the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads | signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I'd | expected | | What's "ads signal loss"? Is that iPhone asking for permission to | track activity across apps, causing less accurate ad placement? | lovecg wrote: | Attribution, not placement | danpalmer wrote: | Yes. That and other similar efforts such as phasing out third | party cookies. | akmarinov wrote: | They've been milking that for almost 3 years now... | Barrin92 wrote: | yes. it's the changes Apple made to app tracking. IIRC Facebook | earlier this year itself stated that it would cost them up to | ten billion in sales. | willis936 wrote: | It could mean people left after the re-brand. | beej71 wrote: | "Desk sharing"... I wonder with the cost-cutting appeal of | smaller real estate footprints and remote work if the huge campus | era is actually drawing to a close. | debug-desperado wrote: | Maybe it is. They're definitely reducing footprint for | satellite offices: | https://www.statesman.com/story/business/real-estate/2022/11... | bartread wrote: | > At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and the | surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth. Many people | predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would | continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the | decision to significantly increase our investments. | Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected. | | There was similar wording to this in the recent Shopify | announcement. I must admit, I was frustrated by it then, and I'm | frustrated by it now. | | "Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration?" | Yeah, sure, many people _who don 't understand the concept of | regression to the mean_ predicted a permanent acceleration. But | here's the thing: if you thought that after months of being | cooped up most people were just going to carry on sitting round | their houses playing Runescape and jacking off, or never visit | the shops again, you are an idiot. Now, I will grant you, there | were some silver linings to the pandemic, and some people did | kind of enjoy it, but there were also a _lot_ of people crawling | the walls who couldn 't wait to be let off the leash again. Just | look at what's happened with the travel industry and holiday | chaos this past summer, at least here in the UK. | | I saw Mark Zuckerberg on Joe Rogan recently. I've got quite a lot | of hostility for Meta, due to the societal damage, and personal | cost to individuals, for which it's responsible, but Mark | Zuckerberg is an intelligent and interesting guy. Definitely | worth listening to, not least of which because he actually comes | across as a human being in this podcast episode rather than some | sort of odd robot. | | I'm incredibly disappointed that he got taken in by this idea of | a permanent off trend shift to online and beyond him - and beyond | Shopify - this kind of, "hurr durr, we got it wrong, wut you | gunna do <<shrugs>>," justification for layoffs is going to get | really old really quickly. | | There's something really wrong with corporate governance that can | look at an unprecedented situation like COVID and then jump to | the conclusion that it's going to permanently change human | behaviour in the round, disregarding all previous trends: humans | are, after all, still human. | bonney_io wrote: | > some people did kind of enjoy it, but there were also a lot | of people crawling the walls who couldn't wait to be let off | the leash again | | And what did people turn to? Social media.... VR... | | Sorry, Zuck, not buying it. | djkivi wrote: | Over 1000 points and 900 comments in 4 hours and not #1 on the | front page? | hinkley wrote: | I totally would have been part of this layoff if I'd responded to | any of the many, many FB recruiters who have contacted me in the | last 18 months. | | Why didn't I reply? Several reasons, but importantly because if | you can't say anything nice sometimes it's best not to say | anything at all. | simsla wrote: | Same feeling. | | I initially passed on the offer because I couldn't work | remotely from my country of choice. They later contacted me | when that'd changed, but I'd found another job by then that I | was happy with. (Plus, the whole "do I want to work for them?" | thing.) | | Probably would've been let go, because less tenure + | nonstandard working arrangement + mass firings is not a good | combo. | pm90 wrote: | I explicitly asked them to put me on a blacklist because | there's no way in hell I'm working for Facebook. They may not | be directly culpable, but they allowed their platform to be | used in ways to subvert democratic norms and institutions | (West), promote and coordinate Genocide (Muslims in India and | Myanmar) etc. | | I honestly consider it better to work for Raytheon; at least | the weapons they make are regulated and subject to stronger | scrutiny. | andreiursan wrote: | IMO the Zuck just gave Elon a lesson on how to be a grownup CEO. | amelius wrote: | Elon is a fake person created by VCs to fulfill their goals. | strikelaserclaw wrote: | i would never trust Elon's word and he has some big flaws as | a person but his goals are so ambitious and risky, small | thinking VC's would never invest in those , all VC's want are | relatively safe software (SAAS) companies. | oxplot wrote: | > Elon is a fake person created by VCs to fulfill their | goals. | | I'm gonna give you a bucket full of benefit of doubt and | assume you mean nothing negative by this. I'm all for fake | people fulfilling VCs goals if that means we can have better | and more exciting future (which Musk has delivered to date). | | It's worth mentioning that many other "real" people with "no" | hidden agendas have done ... jack shit over the past 20 | years. :) | quest88 wrote: | What did he deliver? | arcturus17 wrote: | It's undeniable, no matter what you think of the | character, that he created huge momentum in the | transition to EVs. | | Also, rockets. | oxplot wrote: | Assuming you're sincerely asking this to learn, I suggest | you ask Google, and read some Wikipedia to boot. | quest88 wrote: | Ok, his rich family gave him some money to invest and got | lucky with paypal. Then he became a hypeman for Tesla and | routinely lied about full self driving in order to keep | Tesla from bankruptcy and produced unsafe and poorly | built cars. Then lied about trucks, roadsters, and solar | roofs. He's speed running the history of tunnels and | trains and will find out that, yes, putting independent | cars in a tunnel is a dumb idea. Hyperloops? Seriously? | Buying twitter blue checkmarks only to introduce another | checkmark for verificaiton. Hm..Space-X is sorta | futuristic? He hasn't proven reusable rockets have saved | orders of magnitude of money. | YeBanKo wrote: | What are alternatives to Falcon Heavy? | pm90 wrote: | I laughed so hard at this comment, thank you for a little bit | of humor in these ominous times. | | Its kinda true though. He's been the poster "white night | entrepreneur", egged on by every other nerd who still | believes in the exceptional founder myth. That myth motivates | a ton of folks to give up their lives and time to try and | build something on pretty bleak terms. | serf wrote: | and Zuckerberg is somehow real and authentic? First time i've | ever heard that one. | | Realistically this cut was probably done in time to offer a | decent severance without hurting things on the corporate side | -- to compare this to Twitter's post-Elon crash-plan is | disingenuous, and i'm not even a Musk fan. | jdthedisciple wrote: | Mind elaborating on the "fake person" part? | irsagent wrote: | It sad to see the direction of the company go complete VR and AR. | If it is the next product it would seem to catch on early with | the demo. | dbrgn wrote: | If 11k employees are 13% of the workforce, then Meta employed | roughly 85k people. | | Holy moly, what do all these people actually do all day long? | | Also, assuming an average annual wage of 80k USD, that would mean | 6.8 billion USD of wage costs every year. That's quite something. | propogandist wrote: | Facebook folks usually make 6 figures, and most have a large | portion of comp in stock based comp. The number is much larger. | dbrgn wrote: | I assumed that not every Facebook employee is a senior | software engineer in California, but that they must have a | lot of lower wage employees in non-tech jobs on other | continents as well (e.g. for content moderation). | TulliusCicero wrote: | A lot of content moderators are probably contractors of | some kind, not FTE's for Meta. | sytelus wrote: | Meta is burning $10B/yr to build Metaverse. They are also loading | up on massive debt. This is the part I don't understand. | Development is expensive but NOT this expensive! A back of the | envelope calculation suggests that one can build an entire search | engine infrastructure and product for the same price. Something | like HoloLens from scratch would cost LESS than half of that | price. A full competitive self driving E2E stack development will | cost about half. Developing entire smartphone hardware and OS | from scratch would cost about a third of that money. Moon worthy | space rocket development will cost a tenth of this budget. One | can do so much with $10B that it is absolutely mind blowing. | skizm wrote: | This is completely incorrect. They took on ~$10B in debt | recently for stock buybacks when debt was cheap. They make | around $28B in profit _after_ metaverse spending and have $40B | cash on hand. | sytelus wrote: | Corrected. It still doesn't make any sense to take on debt | (which no longer is cheap) to do stock buybacks. | throwty345df wrote: | I watched a presentation in which it was explained that they | got Microsoft to create a version of Office for their metaverse | and other companies to do similar things. I'm pretty sure that | Microsoft is not doing this for free, so generally speaking I | think their expenses include all the spending related to this | kind of partnerships, which can add up to quite a lot when you | have a whole ecosystem to build. This is not just software and | hardware engineering. With this in mind, the $10bn figure looks | much more reasonable and even disciplined for the goal pursued. | Whether or not this goal is the right one is another question. | I personally think Meta is misguided here and this aventure | will fail miserably. | Eumenes wrote: | Meta/FB is an immoral company, so I have almost zero sympathy if | you agreed to work there in the first place. | xvector wrote: | Looks like the terms of the layoff are very generous. 4 months of | pay, accelerated vesting, etc. | ppjim wrote: | One thing that struck me is the similarity in the wording of the | Stripe and Meta layoff memos. They appear to have been written by | the same AI. | | https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/gadgets-news/stripe-lays... | washywashy wrote: | Genuinely curious why Meta (other big companies) hired so much | during the pandemic? Did one companies make a strategic business | decision to hire more based on project needs, and other companies | followed on in a copy cat way? I guess maybe meta was thinking | "VR will take off during pandemic and folks won't be able to put | the goggles back down ever". I could see some companies copying | it just to hedge against other companies over-recruiting and | snatching some of their employees. Seems almost like a similar | copy cat effort is happening now, unless they are all just | admitting they over-hired. | intrasight wrote: | Lots of over-hiring. It was a competition for scarce talent | with a thinking that talented head count is a prime metric. I | think it is, but it only works if that talent is contributing | to the bottom line. | | Poor HR management plays a big role too. I believe that | capitalism requires ongoing "culling of the herd" - like 5% | every year. This happens in many other businesses. Perhaps tech | will now follow suit. | clolege wrote: | Google's grown its workforce by about 15% every year. Which | adds up to a _lot_ of people nowadays. | | https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/numb... | daniaal wrote: | Google did the same sort of crazy hiring and i wonder if they | will be next to layoff thousands | pm90 wrote: | Google's ad network is pretty ubiquitous since it spans almost | all the known web. Facebook is pretty big too but relies mostly | on its own platform (FB, Inst etc.). For sure Google is | affected, but I imagine the impact is less. | | Also one thing that shouldn't be missed: Google controls | Android, the most popular mobile OS in the world (except US | maybe) so it wasn't affected as strongly by Apple's clampdown. | | The lesson to Zuck is clear: he absolutely needs to own the | next digital platform, and in his mind its the metaverse so | he's going all in. I question the decisions he makes but the | reasoning seems pretty solid at least (unlike a certain | Electric Car maker) | ptman wrote: | I read (an estimate?) somewhere that google has been doing this | by not renewing contractors and cutting hiring | saiya-jin wrote: | That's a version of this which doesn't stress out employees | so the best ones don't jump the ship at first occasion. | | Our org went through something similar some 6 year ago, and | it was a stark contrast with previous frequent firing rounds | when nobody would be secure, sometimes even best within given | team were let go (ie due to current allocation issues). | | But this can replace small firing ie up to 10%, not when you | are doing stuff musk-style. | bart_spoon wrote: | I'm pretty sure that's what Meta was doing 3-6 months ago, so | it may still be coming. | sagebird wrote: | Even though laid-off employees will lose access to Meta internal | systems today, they are welcome to utilize Facebook services to | stay connected to former colleagues, friends, and family members | around the world. After all, it is Facebook's mission to create a | more connected world - and that will never change. | sagebird wrote: | I just want to reassure everyone that while some things are | changing, Facebook's commitment to creating a more connected | world is not going away. If anything, these changes will help | Facebook reach that goal more effectively- and that's something | we can all be proud of. After all, as we continue to develop | new features and products to better connect people from around | the world, there are always going to be challenges but if we | can stay more connected we will be able to handle them in a | very connected way, I believe. | nickdothutton wrote: | "I want to take responsibility" vs "I take responsibility". | lovelearning wrote: | > I've decided to...let more than 11,000 of our talented | employees go. | | It's phrased as if those 11,000 were itching to go away all this | time. Then Mark, in his infinite benevolence, "let" them finally | "go." He hath freed the birds from their golden cages. | cnees wrote: | "We've shifted more of our resources onto a smaller number of | high priority growth areas [like] our long-term vision for the | metaverse" | | Imagine laying off eleven thousand people so you can keep | clinging to the disintegrating corpse of the metaverse. | klenwell wrote: | I detest the Meta metaverse as much as the next Hacker News | user. But there is one use case where I could see it luring me | in. Virtual meetings. Really virtual social events or happy | hours. Professional ones mainly with my remote distributed | team. This would be the killer app in my view. | | The key to me it seems would be in the audio. Like if I turn to | face someone, the audio adjusts so everything else in virtual | room get quieter (but still audible). I can have a conversation | with the person I'm facing. Multiple conversations can go on at | once. Just like in a real room! | | Anybody know if this is something that current state of the | metaverse supports? Is this something being actively researched | and developed? | romanovcode wrote: | I wonder if no-one from higher-ups in Meta tell Zuckerberg that | it is not going to happen and explain to him what sunk cost | fallacy is. | warinukraine wrote: | Anyone who says that to him will get fired, and that makes | sense: In his mind, if you don't believe the vision that he's | going all in in, then you're just detracting. | ausudhz wrote: | Another delusional CEO practically | fullshark wrote: | Maybe Sandberg did, and he disagreed and now she's gone with | a bunch of stuff leaked to try and embarrass her. | jakeinspace wrote: | I'd feel pretty embarrassed right now to be working in VR at | meta while seeing coworkers getting laid off. | _boffin_ wrote: | Why? If I were working there and on that tech, I'd stay. It's | a cool project and I like working on cool projects while | being able to live a comfortable life. | | What are you working on that's more fascinating than VR? | jakeinspace wrote: | VR is cool. I didn't mean to say that Meta VR engineers | deserve to feel guilty, but I imagine it would be strange | to be working in a massive cost center (which may | eventually spell Meta's downfall), while seeing coworkers | dismissed. Definitely don't think my job is any more | fascinating to than VR (although I personally am more | interested in my work). | throwaway7346 wrote: | > Aerospace software engineer, putting bits in space. | _boffin_ wrote: | That's pretty nifty. What do you like about it? | | Edit: why did you use a throwaway to reply to my comment? | jakeinspace wrote: | That wasn't me, they were just quoting my bio. I wasn't | trying to compare my field to VR. I enjoying working on | code knowing that it will (hopefully) be sitting in orbit | soon, but there are more than enough negatives to turn | one away (relatively low pay, ancient tooling, dated | management practices and general industry inertia). | datalopers wrote: | archon810 wrote: | "I'd" | | He doesn't work for Meta. | [deleted] | vorpalhex wrote: | Please don't comment like this on HN. This is not reddit or | Facebook. | belval wrote: | I have this (maybe wrong) opinion that Meta can't be the one to | bring an actual VR/Metaverse project because they are too "on | the radar" of medias. Adoption of new technologies is always | done by more fringe members and then picked up by critical | mass. You can't successfully build a metaverse without | accepting the kind of weird deviant stuff that goes on in | VRChat and Meta can't accept the weird deviant stuff because | they will immediately get called out for it. | | So you get "Horizon" and its assortment of low-quality games | that feel more like a tech demo than an actual world that you | could lose yourself in. | Kye wrote: | I guarantee it's going to be some furry working on VRChat | stuff who finds its policies or technology too limiting and | sets off to do something better. It's already sort of | happened. I don't know that Frooxius started NeosVR for that | reason, but it came after VRChat and is one of the major | competitors. | shuckles wrote: | iPhone was speculated about as an Apple product for years by | the media before it came out. Newsweek even did a cover story | about it. | | Also, the initial launch of iPhone didn't support apps or | Flash (i.e. no porno videos on the web!), and the App Store | has never supported deviant communities. Apple's policies | probably precipitated Tumblr's no nudity moderation. | bombcar wrote: | Versus "windows phone" in its fifty billion iterations | which was exactly what OP talked about. | | If Facebook had quietly (and they were for the longest | time!) continued to work on Oculus and done some internal | skunkworks projects, instead of a big PR push and a company | rename, maybe they could pull an iPhone. | | Personally, I think they drank the meta verse koolaid to | get everyone to stop talking about election interference | and other things that were being blamed on them, and I | think it mostly worked. | [deleted] | jfdbcv wrote: | > Adoption of new technologies is always done by more fringe | members and then picked up by critical mass. | | What examples are you thinking of? Did this happen with the | PC or smartphone? | belval wrote: | I know there are countless counter-examples but: | | - The "public" Internet, although since I used the word | "deviant" people might not like me giving it as an example. | | - Social media in general, which again not necessarily | deviant, but before it reached critical mass a lot of | people just found it weird and privacy invasive. I | distinctly remember my family making fun of people posting | their thoughts on early Twitter. | | - eCommerce, was considered strange as you would put your | CC information on some random website. | | - Video games were for nerds and losers, now most people | have an Xbox/Playstation. | | - Drone/RC plane community was much more weird before the | likes of DJI which lowered the bar significantly. | | - More recently remote work was usually for a small portion | of workers and people commonly said you had to be a certain | type of person for it to work at all. Fast forward a | pandemic and remote meetings are common and even requested | by would-be employees. | | I feel like there a fallacy somewhere in my arguments for | sure, but there definitely seems to be a trend where things | are weird, dumb and strange until they just aren't by | reaching critical mass. Strapping a screen to your face to | play video games and chat with people is definitely one of | those until it isn't and I'd bet that within 10 years it | will be already much more common. | Kye wrote: | The foundations of the post-2007/2008 smartphone were | forged on the keyboards and screens of the | Blackberry/Palmpilot-obsessed professional manager type | person. Fringe statistically if not culturally. | Eupraxias wrote: | Agreed - kind of like how Friendster and MySpace paved the | path for the little startup called Facebook? | sergiotapia wrote: | It takes balls to do what The Zuck is doing. Facebook is | stagnant and dying. It's being chipped away by Tiktok and | neutered by Apple's monopoly. | | He could ride the facebook ship into the sunset and have it die | 20 years from now. | | But no, he's betting big and going for broke. I hope he | succeeds just for the sheer stones he's displaying. Really | inspiring to see a man aim so high. | stiltzkin wrote: | HN and Reddit always get it wrong about the future, the | Metaverse is still an on-going under development ecosystem and | Facebook bad image gives it a negative perspective. | Loughla wrote: | Honestly, it is amusing to see him put so much effort into 2nd | life II , but: | | How can you call it a disintegrating corpse when it's been in | the public eye for what, a few months? I don't get it. | _dan wrote: | It is in fact the opposite of disintegrating - they only just | got legs! | Kye wrote: | It's just for show. They don't have a leg to stand on. | ouid wrote: | third life | Balgair wrote: | Amusingly, there are a lot of Minecraft videos with that | name as a title. I think it's a game type with a limit of 3 | respawns. | marktangotango wrote: | Watch the Joe Rogan interview with Zuckerburg. There's a | moment in there where Rogan gives Zuckerberg a reality check | on it, it's hilarious. | Finnucane wrote: | When Joe Rogan is more in touch with reality than you are, | you need to reevaluate your choices. | fullshark wrote: | This? https://youtu.be/rgh3ELuDZGY | marktangotango wrote: | That's the one thanks! I was just searching for the link. | SilasX wrote: | So the one-off point about it being creepy while gushing | about it through the rest? Not much of a reality check. | imoverclocked wrote: | The comments on that are telling. Does Zuckerberg always | seem that forced when he's interacting with people? | contravariant wrote: | Why does it matter how long the casket's been open? If it's | dead it's dead. | vorpalhex wrote: | Their MAUs have been declining consistently. | hashtag-til wrote: | I'm sure there are lots of competent people putting a lot of | effort in "Metaverse", but to me it looks really just yet | another VR world. Does anyone know what is the concrete new | thing it would make successful? | i_have_an_idea wrote: | Well, they missed the boat being a platform on mobile or | desktop. So, now they have Apple/Google dictating terms to | them. | | They are really desperate to own the next big thing. Whether | that'll be VR, who knows. | jesuscript wrote: | This was Zuck's biggest mistake. The money spent on Metaverse | would have been better spent just making a Facebook phone. | btlr wrote: | They made a phone once, and it didn't pan out. | [Source](https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/heres-why-the- | facebook-phon...) | bombcar wrote: | They've lost $10b on the metaverse so far; you'd think you | could design a phone at least SOMEWHAT decent for that price, | and at least get a TINY foothold back into the market. | giantrobot wrote: | Facebook making a phone would have had similar problems as | VR: what would be the draw of a _Facebook_ phone? If it 's | an Android phone it's just an Android phone with Facebook | branding. They can't deliver exclusive features to only | Facebook Fone owners as their money comes from ads so they | need the broadest reach for features. | | If they rolled their own OS they'd have to spend a lot of | effort building and maintaining that platform. If Microsoft | and Amazon can't will a third phone platform into existence | Facebook definitely can't. | | Their $10B metaverse spend is a waste but I think it would | have been a waste on a phone as well. | jibe wrote: | They gave it at least a weak try, with terrible results. | | https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/heres-why-the-facebook- | phon... | robotnikman wrote: | Wow, can't believe it's almost been a decade since that | was a thing. Back when HTC was still around making some | of the best phones at the time too, I miss my HTC One. | | Also, same thing happened when Amazon tried releasing the | Fire Phone. I think a combination of being carrier | exclusive and using sub-optimal hardware was a big | contributing factor to both their demise. | bombcar wrote: | That's the amazing thing, they tried it once, badly, in | _2013_ and never bothered trying again. | [deleted] | [deleted] | [deleted] | meta_gone wrote: | Got cannned today. At least the severance is good | lambda_dn wrote: | Is it immediate or you still working notice? | fumblebee wrote: | What did the process look like? Did you find out first from HR, | from Zuck's memo, your manager, or was your laptop just | remotely KO'd? | meta_gone wrote: | Email, then checked to see if I still had access. Still have | workplace access weirdly. | valleyer wrote: | What did you lose access to? Source control? Other servers? | Just curious. | polio wrote: | What org were you part of? | s-a-u-s-a-g-e wrote: | thrillgore wrote: | "I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we | got here." | | ...but I'm going to stay and keep all the cards on the Metaverse | as my personal fortune sinks with it. For 11% of you, good luck. | CamelRocketFish wrote: | Could the title match the post tile to follow the hackernews | guidelines? | thatoneguytoo wrote: | It felt as if I was reading the Stripe memo. | darkwater wrote: | I'd like to highlight this quote from the statement: | | > and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower | than I'd expected | | Apple decisions + EU regulations? | randomsearch wrote: | Scapegoating. Replace "signal loss" with "TikTok" and "Most of | our products suck" and you're a lot closer to the truth. | temende wrote: | Well, it's all of the above. Lots of factors working against | Meta/FB these days. | yreg wrote: | I have a stupid question. Perhaps someone can explain. | | What is the link between Apple introducing new rules to nerf | tracking and Meta making less money? | | I guess less tracking means less relevant ads. Are Meta's | customers able to somehow evaluate this and are they now | unwilling to spend as much money on advertising with them? Or | is it that Meta now has lower click-through rates on iOS? Is | there something else? | fingerlocks wrote: | Less attribution. Attribution is more valuable than targeted | ads. | yreg wrote: | What do you mean by attribution? | fingerlocks wrote: | "Was this ad clicked on a Facebook page or a Google | page?" | | "How many people that clicked the ad made a purchase?" | | It's how you determine the cost of advertising and | measure its effectiveness. | KaiserPro wrote: | it means its harder to say that this advert lead to this | click on the page. | | This means the quality of the analytics coming back are much | poorer. so its harder to optimise for a market segment. | yrgulation wrote: | Many many moons ago when i pointed out that FAANG are modern day | fords and chryslers everyone thought i was exaggerating. Actually | if you think about it they are in an even more precarious | position as no one really _needs_ them and their popularity are a | thing of fashion, and are far from too big to fail. | | Edit: Linkedin shows 300k jobs available in the us for the term | "software engineer". I like to think and hope that things will be | fine for those laid off. | bioemerl wrote: | No way. | | Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, they all have very good businesses | with very concrete productivity bonuses and real world | advantages that they give to people, you can't make those | things disappear. | | They also don't have good foreign competitors, like Chrysler | and so on had in Japan. | | There are Chinese companies, but those companies largely exist | thanks to their state barring competition from the outside, and | I don't see it being super likely that that is a real threat, | especially because if Chinese companies really start taking off | the United States government will clamp down on them hard. | | I think these layoffs are more an example of just how crazy | short-term we are thinking in the world. Everyone thought coal | was going to go away, remote work was the future, tech jobs | were the future! | | In reality we need more productivity, less labor demand, and | for our smartest people to be out working on those problems, | not on delivering people advertisements. | | All of these lay off people may end up out more distributed in | the country working no boring jobs that ultimately free up | butts and seats so that those butts can go take other seats for | they are more necessary and important and productive. | niij wrote: | > There are Chinese companies, but those companies largely | exist thanks to their state barring competition from the | outside, and I don't see it being super likely that that is a | real threat, especially because if Chinese companies really | start taking off the United States government will clamp down | on them hard. | | TikTok is a Chinese company and is major competition for | Facebook | bioemerl wrote: | TikTok already teeters on the brink of regulation and isn't | a Microsoft or a Amazon that has real weight. | pm90 wrote: | Sorry, what do you mean by "real weight"? | | They absolutely dominate among Gen-Z, and is catching on | mainstream appeal pretty quickly as well. | bioemerl wrote: | TikTok is social media. | | Microsoft, apple, amazon, and so on are critical | infrastructure. They go away, the lights go out. | ok123456 wrote: | No. TikTok just has a better product compared Facebook. | niij wrote: | Which of my points are you replying "no" to? | swalsh wrote: | TikTok is a contagion. It just happens to infect it's | users more effectively than it's counterparts. | grp wrote: | And it also infected youtube and instagram. | [deleted] | grp wrote: | > those (chinese) companies largely exist thanks to their | state barring competition from the outside | | > (...)the United States government will clamp down on them | hard. | | In the same sentence, nice one. :) | bioemerl wrote: | As they say - do onto others. | | American companies today don't need the protection. They | are better companies. | | With China now using state imbalances to fund their tech | sector, restrictions will be needed. You can't compete with | free stuff backed by a foreign state. | gmm1990 wrote: | What makes you believe that the US companies are | fundamentally better? Tictoc seems to outcompete US | social media companies lately and Tesla said themselves | their only competition comes from China. I don't think | Bytedance has a huge burn rate or at least higher than | could be funded on the public markets, no need for state | backing. | bioemerl wrote: | Right now they just are. | | Larger world market share. More internal diversity and | understanding of other cultures. | swalsh wrote: | " no one really _needs_ them" | | Facebook? Sure, people can live without that. But Microsoft, | Google, i'd argue even Amazon are integral parts of the | economy. Trying building a modern business without the business | software Microsoft maintains. Try doing work without Google. | Amazon is a part of our modern shopping habits. | | Do they need to be as big as they were? Probably some room to | go down, but they're an essential part of the economy now. | yrgulation wrote: | Microsoft is not FAANG, at least not part of the acronym i | was strictly referring to. | | The world needs a search engine, but the moment a new, | competent, one pops up all you need to do is switch a URL and | you are done with google. All other services google provides | are replaceable. | | Amazon is a cool marketplace, infested by scams and low | quality products, an alibaba of the west. It is an integral | part of the economy by I manage to do just fine without it. | AWS is a wake up call away from trending out of fashion. | wollsmoth wrote: | Microsoft isn't FAANG because they generally pay a bit | lower. But they're still a worldwide powerhouse. Windows is | extremely popular, and so is their office suite. You just | can't license osx on non-apple machines and linux options | are just not as popular yet. | yrgulation wrote: | Microsoft, even if i don't much like their products, are | a grown-up company. That's probably why they haven't gone | crazy with pay, which is still decent. | wollsmoth wrote: | It's great for the area they're located in. If you keep | getting step raises and stock refreshers every year you | can actually end up doing quite well. Your initial comp | isn't going going to be super impressive though. | ct0 wrote: | Google is integreated in nearly every university and large | company across the US. They aren't going anywhere. | nfRfqX5n wrote: | Very hn take. Nobody really needs Gmail or AWS? just look at | what happens when AWS has an partial outage in a single region | jollyllama wrote: | It would be very interesting to see a breakdown of what % of Meta | employees are remote, what % are not, and what % of each are laid | off. | alasdair_ wrote: | I worked at Facebook when covid first hit. Zuckerburg treated | everyone in the company very, very well. There was a blanket | "don't worry about performance, take care of your families" | guarantee that honestly was an enormous help. | | The thing that particularly struck me though was the way he | handled contract workers like (some of) the kitchen staff, | cleaners, etc. These people don't work for Facebook and he had | zero obligation to them, yet he paid all of their wages for the | full length of the pandemic just so they could stay afloat. | | If it were just about the money, I doubt he'd have done this. | racl101 wrote: | That's good to hear about Mark as opposed to just the bad | stuff. | donretag wrote: | I worked at Ticketmaster when covid first hit. Since the | beginning, management has always been positive and re-iterating | that the cash reserves are substantial and the company can | endure the loss of revenue. Then the first layoff hit. Same re- | iteration. We are good. Then came the second layoff. | lazyasciiart wrote: | Salesforce announced their largest profits ever the same week | they announced their first layoffs ever, I believe. The | company, as they said, was in great shape. | lupire wrote: | The company is fine. The employees are not. | | Anyway, you don't join Ticketmaster for anything approaching | morality. Snakes eat snakes. | j0ba wrote: | I'm pretty sure he didn't lose a single one of his billions | paying them, but good on him anyways. He definitely didn't have | to do it. | dbg31415 wrote: | Hold up. You know they got money from the government not to lay | people off, right? | syntaxing wrote: | As in a PPP loan? I haven't found this in public record, any | source I can reference? | cletus wrote: | Ex-Facebooker here too, also during that time. | | Zuck's response to Covid definitely had upsides, particularly | (as you mention) the continued payment of contractors even | though offices were closed. There were downsides too. The | "Don't worry about perf" also meant you couldn't get promoted | that half and there was no recognition for better performance, | which sort of sucked for people whose projects had come to | fruition (where they reap the rewards of impact). | Hypothetically you could get recognized in H2 2020 but in | reality it didn't really work like that most of the time. | | But look, the big problem with Facebook is twofold: | | 1. Apple's "do not track" feature really cut the ad business | off at its knees. You can support that on privacy grounds but | that shouldn't obscure the issue that a platform being able to | do that while maintaining that benefit themselves is actually a | huge problem (and it makes a big case for Apple acting | anticompetitively); | | 2. (This is the big one) Zuck has no vision for the company. | That's the core problem. Assuming pandemic growth would | continue (as he claims) isn't the problem. | | This first took form in response to the spread of | misinformation in the aftermath of the 2016 election, Facebook | decided to try and determine objective truth in posts. That's | never going to work and never going to make anyone happy. | Controversial topics get amplified. But labelling | misinformation treats this as a content problem when it's a | user behaviour problem. It's your weird uncle posting articles | about chips in vaccines. The content doesn't matter. The | behaviour does. | | But here's the big one: Facebook has long viewed products on | two axes: audience and medium. Twitter, for example, goes to a | large audience. WhatsApp, small audiences. Medium is | essentiaally this progression: text -> image -> video -> VR -> | AR. It explains the purchase of Oculus and fits with the | metaverse. | | But there's literally no business case for the metaverse. | Nobody wants it. Phones are convenient. Wearing headsets isn't. | If we can ever build AR glasses (and that's far from a | certainty) then maybe that might work but there are significant | technical problems (eg matching focus, true blacks). | | So 11,000 people got let go today because of bad decisions made | at the very top that they had nothing to do with and no control | over. Sure Zuck has lots a bunch of paper value but whether you | have $100 billion or $30 billion, you're fine. | ummonk wrote: | I feel like if we do see VR going mainstream it'll be | something like the background screens used in filming the | Mandalorian. Big wall displays / projections that adjust what | they're displaying based on viewer location. All the views | would need to wear is 3d theater glasses. | tomcam wrote: | Not normally a fan of the man, so this is very nice to hear. | adam_arthur wrote: | It's easy to be generous when times are good and your equity is | significantly overvalued relative to fundamentals | AbrahamParangi wrote: | And yet, many are still not generous when times are good. | adam_arthur wrote: | Many were. And now that their stocks are down 90%, they | aren't | phonebucket wrote: | > equity is significantly overvalued relative to fundamentals | | Which fundamentals? | | The $117.9 billion in revenue and $39.4 billion of net profit | in 2021 [1]? | | The price to earnings ratio of 9.22, which is far lower than | the NASDAQ average of around 28.0 [2]? | | [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/277229/facebooks- | annual-... [2] https://ycharts.com/companies/NDAQ/pe_ratio | adam_arthur wrote: | Those stats are for now, not then. Good try though | | And they are vaporizing all of their FCF by reinvesting | into the metaverse. Or were until the stock continued to | collapse. | | It's fair value here if you assume the metaverse is | actually something they can monetize in a big way. Too far | off for most investors | paxys wrote: | I agree with your overall point, that Facebook employees have | been very well taken care of, but: | | > There was a blanket "don't worry about performance, take care | of your families" guarantee that honestly was an enormous help. | | Yet now he is firing people based on those same performance | reviews. Plenty of people I know at Facebook feel betrayed | because of exactly this. | CobrastanJorji wrote: | When your CEO's most famous quote is "They 'trust me.' Dumb | fucks," you shouldn't be surprised what happens when you | trust him. | jiscariot wrote: | sytelus wrote: | I am particularly sad about current state of Meta. Regardless | of what people think of Facebook and Zuck, he was | unapologetically a hacker. I visited FB campus few times and | emphasis on hacker culture everywhere was just immensely | delightful. He knew the value of good hacker and raised bar for | the compensation across the entire industry. Ship your code | today was absolutely refreshing. Number of open source projects | that has came out of Meta is unparalleled for number of | employees. MetaAI had been well protected and is one of the | strongest engine for progress in AI. I always viewed it as a | company run by a hacker for hackers. | colordrops wrote: | NSA is also probably a great place for hackers, but their | mission is trash. Someone once drew a 2x2 grid for me. One | dimension was competence, and the other was right mission. I | was then asked what is the most dangerous square on the grid. | The answer is competent with the wrong mission. | lupire wrote: | What's wrong with the NSA's _mission_? | | Analysts stealing nudes isn't the mission. | mike_d wrote: | You don't agree with the tiny sliver of the NSA mission | that you know about. | | 90% of the work they do is purely defensive. The offensive | work targets bad actors and foreign governments/militaries, | compared to other countries intelligence services that also | engage in economic espionage. | | In a perfect world they wouldn't need to exist at all. But | we don't live in that world. | artificial wrote: | How do you square this with the constitution? Need to | capture all the data on the internet and sift through it | for the greater good? | throwaway675309 wrote: | Given the natural opaqueness of the organization I would | likely fundamentally disagree with a great deal more of | what the NSA mission is if I had any knowledge of it. | | They also basically have zero real congressional | oversight. | | And just because 90% of what they do is purely defensive | doesn't make the 10% any more acceptable (x key score, | data mining, hooking into Google, etc.) | colordrops wrote: | You contradict yourself. If you don't know what they are | doing behind the curtain, how can you be so confident | that 90% of what they do is defensive? | | They don't work within the bounds of the law and | constitution, and thus their mission is bad by my simple | definition. I don't need to know what they do in secret. | the-anarchist wrote: | That is how cabals work. | dantyti wrote: | I get your point, but is that really such a great thing when | it comes to business ethics? e.g., spying on people and | hacking their private communications just to get ahead: | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg- | hacked-i... | monetus wrote: | He was 19 there right? Thankfully I've seen people who were | writing keyloggers at that age be very decent, good people, | so that article isn't an indictment of who he is now - | plenty of things to look at more recent than that. It would | be really nice to hear him candidly express how he fucked | up with the rohingya, and content promotion/moderation. | goodpoint wrote: | > he was unapologetically a hacker | | Huh? Like Gates and Musk, he's not even a highly skilled | developer, even less a hacker. | goodpoint wrote: | HAH, downvoted to -4 for writing this on "hacker" news. | bobsmooth wrote: | Musk was writing games at 12 years old and Zuck still does | stuff like this. | | https://m.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/building- | jarvis... | goodpoint wrote: | And that does not make someone a highly skilled developer | and even less a world-class genius. | bobsmooth wrote: | The point being discussed is "he was unapologetically a | hacker." Making your own home automation definitely makes | you a hacker. | antegamisou wrote: | Seriously I was never aware how badly the word's meaning | has been butchered by the SV techbros until I joined the | site. | | I first heard it used to traditionally describe computer | security whizzes like Kevin Mitnick, Diffie & Hellman, | Robert Morris (Morris worm) etc. But apparently the last | ~15 years it's just a compliment for the next random | corporate grifter who has 0 technical experience and is | just in for the $$$. | | However Gates definitely deserves the title, he had helped | make some significant contributions a few years before or | right after dropping out of Harvard by co-authoring a paper | in complexity theory next to a very prominent name in the | field. | | https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92236 | 7... | cookie_monsta wrote: | > computer security whizzes like Kevin Mitnick | | Strange because Mitnick puts most of his exploits down to | social engineering, not technical prowess. | | But then taking anything a self-confessed social engineer | says about themselves at face value is obviously | problematic. | antegamisou wrote: | I know but it certainly was one of the most prominent | names when I was googling for _best hackers_ ( :-) ) back | in 2005. | | Still, I prefer having someone like Kevin in mind when | saying the word instead of any other desperate "growth | hacker" that is trying to mislead VCs with their trite | ideas that will forever change tech the way we know it. | lupire wrote: | Your claim is that solving a hard math problem (which | takes smarts for sure!) is more "hacker" than bulding a | web app (Zck) or an operating system (Gates)? | antegamisou wrote: | I understand why you would think that's what I meant to | say, but no. | | If we aren't talking about computer security, _hacker_ | imo would be someone with remarkable technical | /scientific contributions. Indeed, there may be some | personal bias for math hackers (cryptographers, | theorists) but then their skillsets with the respective | programmer ones converge. | goodpoint wrote: | > Seriously I was never aware how badly the word's | meaning has been butchered by the SV techbros until I | joined the site. | | Spot on. | | > However Gates definitely deserves the title, he had | helped make some significant contributions a few years | back by co-authoring a paper in complexity theory next to | a very prominent name in the field. | | Wait, what? | spoils19 wrote: | > Wait, what? | | Gates definitely deserves the title, he had helped make | some significant contributions a few years back by co- | authoring a paper in complexity theory next to a very | prominent name in the field. | nequo wrote: | It might be Gates and Papadimitriou (1979): Bounds for | Sorting by Prefix Reversal. | | https://dodona.ugent.be/exercises/189028897/media/gates19 | 79.... | jdale27 wrote: | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0012365 | X79... | alarge wrote: | I don't think this is a "SV techbro" thing. In the 80s | (when I was in college), "hacker" had a connotation of | someone who built cool things in software, usually | outside the "normal" approach. It was sort of the | opposite of what eventually became software engineering - | quick and dirty "tricks" that explored the edges of | operating system. We looked up to hackers as repositories | of esoteric knowledge. Long hair and hiking boots were | common. | | Certainly, some of what they hacked on might be related | to security. Or maybe they wrote little games. Or threw | together a curses-based interface to the Unix shell. Or | some other cool utility. | | As I recall, there was a concerted attempt to distinguish | between people who exploited security vulnerabilities | (aka "crackers") from people who could quickly build | these useful things ("hackers"). | | I feel like the modern use of hacker (ala "hackathon") is | actually pretty well in line with the usage I grew up | with. | DonHopkins wrote: | We have Eric S Raymond to thank for corrupting the | meaning of "Hacker" to include himself. | cableshaft wrote: | > ...he had helped make some significant contributions a | few years back... | | Article says his paper on it was published in 1979, which | was 43 years ago. I wouldn't call that 'a few years | back'. I interpreted your comment as he took a break from | his philanthropy to come up to an efficient solution to | the problem like 3-5 years ago. | antegamisou wrote: | Holy shit that's a very misleading typo. Thanks for | pointing it out. | cableshaft wrote: | No problem. It's still cool, still makes him a hacker, | just slightly less impressive than if he had done it | while juggling the needs of his Foundation. | Leires wrote: | I'm sorry, but honestly fuck Meta. Conducting psychological | experiments on users without consent, and enabling psyops | from organizations like Cambridge Analytica, is enough for me | to never use their services. I hope they implode as a | company. I happily said no when people from meta approached | me on LinkedIn. | carimura wrote: | Billions of people use the service for "free". As long as | everyone knows they are what's for sale, the rest makes | sense. Any company of this size is going to sway discourse | so it's time to accept that. I for one do not and thus | deleted our family accounts long ago. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | > I for one do not and thus deleted our family accounts | long ago. | | I have seen many people brainwashed by highly targeted | ads and conspiracies that found them on facebook. Those | people vote, break into congress, etc. | | deleting your individual account doesn't change that | hutzlibu wrote: | "deleting your individual account doesn't change that " | | It shows, that a life without FB is possible. The more | people do it, the easier it gets. | | Until the network effect is overcome. | gfd wrote: | Not saying it makes it okay, but every company in existence | does this to some extent. Everyone does A/B testing with | the intent to alter user behavior (aka psychology) to | increase their profits. | kube-system wrote: | Maybe every company financed by adtech does this. But | that's a far cry from "every company in existence". | three_seagrass wrote: | IIRC it wasn't a generic A/B test but an experiment | intentionally designed to manipulate the emotion of users | and measure their reactions. | | In research, these types of experiments typically require | consent.. | webmobdev wrote: | You have a good point. But let's not forget that the | Nazi's and the Japanese used to do incredibly invasive | medical tests on human beings in the name of "science". | (Even the Americans have done political and medical | experiments on their citizens, using the CIA, on African | Americans and criminals). All these are condemned today | by the scientific community because of it caused great | harm (or even death) to the subjects _who never gave | their consent_ to such experiments. The psychological | experiments conducted by FB on its users was equally bad | because it looked to trigger emotions in the users (a | useful feature for an advertising platform), some of | which could cause users to go into depression. I don 't | know if the FB people conducting those experiments are | aware that even mild depression causes great stress on an | individual, and serious depression triggers suicidal | impulses. | | (This is not an attack on you or your otherwise valid | point. Just a reminder that people should be mindful of | their ethical obligations to get _informed consent_ and | not cause harm to others with their experiments). | [deleted] | [deleted] | worik wrote: | > but every company in existence does this to some extent | | That is untrue. | | A/B testing is not the same thing as seeing how bad your | users' mental state becomes if you muck with what they | read. | | A/B testing is a tool. It can be used for good or evil. | That was Facebook's choice how to use it. | s1artibartfast wrote: | That doesn't make any sense. You decide what they read. | You would want to know if it's harming their mental | state. Closing your eyes to the impact you have does not | negate the impact | danaris wrote: | The problem is, Facebook didn't do it to make sure they | wouldn't cause psychological damage. | | They did it to make sure they could keep people's | attention, _despite_ the psychological damage. | s1artibartfast wrote: | Is that the stated goal or your projection? | bigbacaloa wrote: | Not every company consciously does unethical things, no. | mrinterweb wrote: | Let's not confuse or conflate A/B testing with making | ethical decisions. | kat_rebelo wrote: | A/B testing is a completely different thing from hiring | Behavioral Psychologists to design your platform to be as | addictive as possible | | https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30962055-irresistible | throw827474737 wrote: | Nope, not every, really such an ignorant statement. | lanstin wrote: | It isn't just the one thing, it is a pattern where when | given a choice between respected a sense of ethics and | decency or taking more money, Facebook as an org has at | every instance that is publically known, has taken the | money. The high salaries seem to be justified not by | their technical skill but their willingness to do what | they are told for momey without regard to conscience. | | Read the whistle blower report, witness the evolution | from seeing content from your friends posted in less | addictive chronological feed to addictive content your | friends like in the internet sorted by addictive news. | Hell, the site started as a PHP hack to creep on pretty | women. They sold a bunch of data to foreign adversaries. | For years, they let people sell ads to Nazis. They don't | give the people faced with the psychologically brutal | jobs of moderation get benefits. They have been a | platform for genocide and government surveillance. | | I might be missing some examples of them missing some | money to do the right thing, but nothing comes to mind. | cj wrote: | A/B testing compared to creating algorithms that prey on | human vulnerabilities to drive "engagement" are 2 | categorically different things. | | Absolutely, go bananas A/B testing different colors for a | "Sign Up" button or testing different pricing models. | | But let's not go bananas optimizing algorithms that are | damaging to users mental health at a massive scale. | zeruch wrote: | A/B testing (which is getting users to respond/react to a | UX event, and choosing which outcome is more suited to | the business) is considerably different from "can we | manipulate users up front, to perceive or react to things | assertively and programmatically, even if against their | interests?" | londons_explore wrote: | And without A/B testing, every product you use would be | worse. Not only would it be less profitable, but it would | also be harder to use, less useful, and less productive. | | A/B testing isn't a new thing - I'm sure the inventor of | the wheel experimented with different shapes, and the | buyer of the hexagonal wheel probably didn't have the | best user experience. | | Multiply that by the number of people in the world and | the number of products people use, and A/B testing is | really up there as possibly one of the most beneficial | ideas ever. | | I really don't understand those who claim it should be | banned - I see no way that testing two different versions | of a website with people who desire to use that website | can bring sufficient harm to outweigh those massive | benefits. | NaturalPhallacy wrote: | > _And without A /B testing, every product you use would | be worse._ | | Worse _for whom_? I feel like a lot of the A /B testing | results in more revenue, a more addictive app, and less | user satisfaction, because they're not testing for | anything beneficial to the user, because at least with | FB, you're not the customer, their advertisers are the | customer. | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: | > And without A/B testing, every product you use would be | worse. Not only would it be less profitable, but it would | also be harder to use, less useful, and less productive. | | Do we live in the same universe? As far as I can tell, | software keeps trending _worse_. Usability is terrible, | options and settings keep getting moved around and | hidden, software is less responsive than it used to be... | fragmede wrote: | The specific test that did it for me, is that Facebook | ran this experiment where they logged users out and then | wouldn't let them log them back in despite the correct | password, just to toy with them to see how long/hard they | would keep trying to login, in order to see how addicted | they were to Facebook. | | I was in the "B" group, and felt so humiliated at how | many times I tried to reset my password to get into | Facebook. | techsplooge wrote: | Oops! I think I may have been part of the team that ran | that test. I get that you're annoyed but tests like that | give us really valuable insights that help us make the | product better :) | ulchar wrote: | Could you give an example of the insights you gained by | running this experiment? | techsplooge wrote: | We can look at the different demographics of people who | tried to log in less than others, and try determine _why_ | they aren 't as hooked as others, and work to rectify by | improving their experience! | kuramitropolis wrote: | I _still_ get that sometimes - I think someone left it on | for all the Tor nodes in Germany... | rjbwork wrote: | Wow. That is insanely user hostile and borderline | gaslighting/psychological torture. That is truly one of | the most insane experiments I've ever hard of someone | running. | anthonypasq wrote: | i agree, Zuck should be put on trial for violating the | Geneva convention because some people couldnt log into | facebook. | anonomousename wrote: | Is there any evidence of this? Especially for people that | use a password manager, this seems incredibly stupid on | Facebooks side. | strulovich wrote: | Never heard of this one. Any articles about it? | barrenko wrote: | Others have done it after as well. Hell, it may not have | originated at FB. | fragmede wrote: | It was a footnote in the wake of the main psychological | experiments facebook ran on its users back in 2014*, | which is overshadowing my searches for this particular | detail. | | * https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/fac | ebook... | epolanski wrote: | > And without A/B testing, every product you use would be | worse | | Imagine thinking that seriously. | dlkf wrote: | It's a completely ubiquitous practice. So either it does | generally help, or every software company ever doesn't | know what they are doing. | | To me the latter view is the one that's hard to take | seriously. | r00fus wrote: | > And without A/B testing, every product you use would be | worse. | | The primary goal of A/B testing is to see what's more | profitable. | | If that happens to result in better UI that's a side | effect. | | In fact, it could result in less usability (relevant to | this conversation, it probably resulted in the | frustrating "algorithm-based" timeline at | FB/Twitter/etc). | SoftTalker wrote: | At least in some cases. | | A/B testing lead to the development of effective "dark | patterns" in UI that trick users into doing things they | don't want or don't understand, and then making it | difficult to undo. | londons_explore wrote: | The hexagonal wheel probably wasn't very profitable | either. | mzd348 wrote: | But it comes in handy in the alternate universe where | pi=3. | eecc wrote: | Can you elaborate? | mzd348 wrote: | My thinking is that in this alternate universe where | pi=3, circles (with diameter 2 * pi * r) will look like | hexagons (which have diameter 2 * 3 * r), so wheels would | have to be hexagonal. | tomrod wrote: | Certainly, because it probably never existed as a | function for wheel. Do you have any evidence that the | "well duh" criteria wasn't used, and hex wheels show up | in the archeological record? | milosmns wrote: | > > The primary goal of A/B testing is to see what's more | profitable. | | Well, I think I'll provide a disagreeing opinion. :) | | I assume this opinion probably comes from your past | experiences, and I believe it is true in many cases. | Since I'm not American and have never worked in an | American corporate environment, I can't say what is true | over there... but my experience in EU and Canada with | A/A/B, A/B/C and typical A/B testing (as well as building | such testing tools for others) was not like that. | | For example, when building tutorials for users, | profitability is far from being the primary objective. | Same goes for building documentation, programming | languages, open-source software, internal tooling and | other such things. | | Of course, I get that in the end, profitability is the | primary goal of the company (with some exceptions). But I | maintain that not all A/B tests have profitability as | their primary goal, which makes the previous statement an | incorrect generalization IMO. | sciclaw wrote: | Agreed. A/B testing helps you meet a desired goal. The | desired goal is where ethical questions come in. | | For example, I have used A/B testing to see find ways to | help users get a task done with fewer clicks, saving them | time. | ouid wrote: | This is so wrong in its conclusion, that its hard to know | where to start. First, we should be clear that we are | talking about involuntary, undisclosed A/B testing. | | I have not experienced a product become better for the | user as a result of involuntary A/B testing in my entire | adult life. | | Producers and consumer have both an _adversarial | relationship_ and a mutually beneficial relationship, and | the distinction between these two is essentially the | split between voluntary A /B tests and involuntary ones. | In the adversarial component, the producer is trying to | figure out how to extract more money from the consumer, | without improving the product. Alternatively, (and | equivalently), how to make the product cheaper, but also | worse, in a way that yhe customer doesnt notice (with | their wallet). A proactive version of the "market for | lemons". | | For instance, if you A/B test your cancellation process | to minimize the number of people who cancel their | subscriptions, you will almost certainly do something | that makes you some additional money, and is also | unambiguously evil. | | Any A/B testing that is mutual benefit to consumers and | producers can be done with consent, by volunteers. And | the miniscule amount of scientific rigor you would lose | by doing so is not worth the tremendous sacrifice we have | seen in quality of consumables in the past 2 decades | (probably longer, but i do not have the personal | experience to go longer) | | You might be compelled to describe involuntary A/B | testing as a strategy for maximizing evil subject to the | constraint that it be legal, but it often dips its toes | into seeing what is illegal but still profitable, and is | capable of fundamentally undermining our legal system and | even our political system. | | The technology has grown more powerful. The addition of | computers that can optimize essentially arbitrary | objective functions has serious existential implications | for humanity. | | A blanket ban on the practice, incurring the total | dissolution of any corporate entity found guilty of the | practice of involuntary A/B testing, would be a start. | dlkf wrote: | > I have not experienced a product become better for the | user as a result of involuntary A/B testing in my entire | adult life. | | If you did, how would you know? | ouid wrote: | well, for starters, there would have to have been a | product that improved at all. Those are already rare | enough that I can enumerate them, and in each of those | instances involuntary A/B testing can be ruled out for | other reasons. | | When craigslist added the map that shows you where all of | the people are offering the thing you are interested in. | That was a very good change, but thats pretty far from | how craigslist operates. | | When dominos stopped serving hot glue on cardboard, its | pretty easy to see how that didnt come about by furtive | A/B testing. They were pretty confident people would like | the new pizza more than the old pizza. So they told them | about it. Boy did that work for dominos. | | That actually speaks more generally to my point. If | you're making a change that you think people will like, | you tell them about it, because even if it turns out that | they dont like it more, the fact that they thought they | would and you did it generates quite a lot of good will | for them. | SahAssar wrote: | > A/B testing isn't a new thing - I'm sure the inventor | of the wheel experimented with different shapes, and the | buyer of the hexagonal wheel probably didn't have the | best user experience. | | Consider yourself that inventor, would you A/B test | hexagonal vs round? | andsoitis wrote: | I could have hypotheses around wheel dimensions (e.g. | width, diameter), materials, etc. that are absolutely | great targets for A/B testing. | SahAssar wrote: | That sounds like a clear no, you already know the answer | to the hypothesized A/B test. | | As for the other aspects they sound like great targets | for testing within different use-cases, but I'm not sure | why that'd be an A/B test as we think of them now. | brundolf wrote: | I'm sorry, you could make this case about some kinds of | telemetry, but specifically not A/B testing. Speaking | from work experience: A/B testing doesn't look into the | nuances of usability or productivity, it looks at easy- | to-quantify metrics like conversion rates and money | spent. These metrics rarely align with a better | experience for the user (outside of like, prettier | buttons and stuff), and instead tend to result in less- | informative, less-agentic software (information and | choice often distract from conversions!) | andrewmutz wrote: | That's not true. I've done A/B tests in business software | on how long it takes the user to get their job done on a | data-intensive form. | | It's a great tool, and its impact all depends on how you | use it. | g_p wrote: | This is an interesting example, and perhaps pushes part | of the blame and dislike for A/B testing onto tech | companies' incentives. | | If you're building a tool to make life easier for the | user, something that gives them a better experience is | your optimal outcome. This seems like a scenario where | A/B can produce a good outcome. | | The challenge is when you throw in an ad-based revenue | model, and the A/B testing is then optimized for the | opposite (eyeball-hours, linear metres scrolled per | session, ad spots passed, ads clicked) - engagement-based | business models end up (I'd argue) A/B optimizing for the | opposite of what their users want, to get them to spend | longer doing a task they could have done quicker. | MikePlacid wrote: | > The challenge is when you throw in an ad-based revenue | model | | The funny thing is - the ad-based revenue model is not | the only possible variant. Last time I've checked | Facebook's profits per user were $7 per quarter, that is | $28 a year. At the same time I am paying LiveJournal $25 | a year for the ad-free version. Just taking my money | looks like a much better model in many respects: | | - less overhead: a lot of people doing these studies how | to force me to look at something I do not want to look at | will be free to do something more useful to the society; | | - streamlined relationship between me and my publisher: | in this model there is no advertiser who can say "I do | not like these texts, no revenue for you". | | That's why I prefer to pay for some Substack authors, | like Matt Taibbi and Glen Greenwald, than to try to fish | their texts for free amid some sea of "clever" | advertising (hey AI testers, I bought this thing already, | what's the point of forcing it on me again and again?). | | I kinda wish that Brave model (my money distributed | between sites I visited) got more traction. It looks much | more healthy. | sokoloff wrote: | The number of people willing to use Facebook today vastly | exceeds the number willing to pay $25/yr to use Facebook. | | I bet by at least 4 orders of magnitude and likely 5 or | 6. | brundolf wrote: | I'm having a difficult time imagining a situation where | people's actual productivity using a piece of software | can be so easily measured. I'm sure it happens, but I | think it's safe to say this is the exception to the rule | when it comes to A/B testing | andrewmutz wrote: | Data entry | scott_w wrote: | You can measure the time between two key actions that | operate as a proxy for task completion. | Retric wrote: | There are much better methodologies for speeding up | worker productivity than A/B testing. A/B testing is | designed to extract information from people you can't do | more complicated tests such as eye tracking or motion | studies with. | | The major issue with A/B testing in the workplace is it | causes confusion and slows people down when you change | things. Which makes these tests really expensive even if | they are seemingly easy to preform. So, I would call it | useful but flawed. | dado3212 wrote: | As someone who's run literally hundreds of A/B tests, | many of them on the backs of UX research with users in | the field, people have no idea what they want. The | anecdata is a place to investigate, but never the end of | the journey. | judge2020 wrote: | The fear with direct user research is that, unless you | have a team and budget for getting enough of a sample, | one-on-ones might not only be unhelpful but actively | harmful if you implement something that solves that | customers' problem but otherwise gets in the way for | other customers. | costcofries wrote: | This is complete BS. I run hundreds of a/b tests each | quarter and I specifically refuse to run the types of | experiments you allude to. My a/b testing is all about | helping users achieve the things (the outcomes) that they | want to achieve by using our product in the first place. | If we can help them do that, with more ease, then we are | creating a better experience. | | Perhaps you should just agree that, "not all a/b testing | is the same". | fragmede wrote: | How is that BS? Other companies don't have you there to | say no to them and are definitely running the kind of | experiments you're too good for. | costcofries wrote: | Did you even read my whole comment? It's BS because | he/she/they blanketed it without taking any nuance which | i tried to do with my comment + an example! | | Quote - "Speaking from work experience: A/B testing | doesn't look into the nuances of usability or | productivity, it looks at easy-to-quantify metrics like | conversion rates and money spent" | blarghyblarg wrote: | ah yes, the good old "Let's A/B test our capability to | influence emotional states using the news feeds." | | Totally the same as A/B testing button placement. | Totally. | vippy wrote: | 10000% this. | TeMPOraL wrote: | It's a matter of degree and kind. | | There's also a neat sleight of hand here. Your inventor | of the wheel surely tested multiple variants to optimize | for the utility of his invention _to the user_. The A /B | testing that's problematic is about optimizing _taking | advantage of_ the user. That doesn 't lead to better | experience, but the opposite. This is what's increasingly | popular, and this is what people complain about or want | to see banned. | | Related: attention economy is predicated on bad user | experience, because it makes money from _friction_. | bumby wrote: | There's a reason Tristan Harris called upon SV to avoid | "A/B testing ourselves into the 'gradient descent of | mankind'". | | My qualms are not so much with the method as the morals | that guide it. It's agnostic but when operationalized in | a faulty moral framework can definitely lead to bad | results. | xzlzx wrote: | A/B testing crosses a fundamental line when people are | the product. | Lutger wrote: | I doubt that the mentioned 'psychological experiments' | are just A/B testing. There is a very strong case to be | made that Trump and Brexit would not have happened | without Facebook, and those are just two examples. | headhasthoughts wrote: | What's wrong about conducting psychological experiments on | users? Everyone who signed up for Facebook agreed to the | ToS. | aussiesnack wrote: | I'll cede no ground to anyone on loathing the corporate | world, to the extent that I've all but abandoned work and | the cash economy (at the cost of considerable personal | privation). | | But humans are complex beings, and it's just _realistic_ to | view us all with some nuance rather than casually tossing | everyone into good /evil baskets. The gp outlined an | example of decent behaviour, and it remains just that | regardless of our attitudes on other grounds towards | Zuckersnuffles and/or Meta. Even murderers can be kind and | decent people given in some contexts (witnessed at first | hand). | dr_dshiv wrote: | That is such a poor reason to not like Meta, among many, | many reasons. All meta did was publish their results. The | backlash ensured that no other companies shared results-- | but AB testing is bigger than ever across the industry. | | Now if you had said "fuck meta because my feed is filled | with an unintelligible mix of baby photos and political | screeds," I'd totally follow. | ShamelessC wrote: | There's always this, as well - | | "On 6 December 2021, approximately a hundred Rohingya | refugees launched a $150 billion lawsuit against | Facebook, alleging that it did not do enough to prevent | the proliferation of anti-Rohingya hate speech because it | was interested in prioritizing engagement." | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_content_management | _co... | jrm4 wrote: | I'm sorry, but the "A/B" responses to this sentiment are | some of the worst euphemistic cope I've ever seen. You all | really need to get out of your "tech" shells and take | seriously this idea that "running nonconsensual psych | experiments on humans" is a fundamentally _evil_ thing to | do. | jahsome wrote: | I am interested in this line of logic, but I'm not sure I | would go so far. | | I feel engaging in commerce in any way at all is | impossible without being "evil" under this definition. | | Aren't advertisements at their core unconsented | psychological manipulation? What about retail store | design? Is providing customer service altogether just | manipulation? | | I think I take issue with the word "evil." It seems to | imply a certain malice or intent to harm, which just | isn't logical, given the context. | heavyset_go wrote: | Don't forget that the company profited from being a | platform used to organize a genocide[1]. | | [1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar- | faceb... | leesec wrote: | >Conducting psychological experiments on users without | consent | | This is a really malicious way to describe showing two | users the same button but in different locations | vippy wrote: | Yeah, because that's _definitely_ what folks are | concerned with. A /B testing of button locations, and not | feed algorithms designed to manipulate users. | prezjordan wrote: | This is not what happened https://www.theguardian.com/tec | hnology/2014/jul/02/facebook-... | metalliqaz wrote: | Oh come on, you know that's not what he is talking about. | He is talking about algorithmic engagement-keeping. | concordDance wrote: | Do you just fundamentally hate the concept of an A/B test? | Or do you just hate the idea of letting people outside the | company know the results? | camdat wrote: | > Conducting psychological experiments on users without | consent | | Link pls | WoahNoun wrote: | https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/30/facebo | ok-... | | https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1416405111 | camdat wrote: | Anything from newer than 10 years ago? | worik wrote: | That is when it happened. | smsm42 wrote: | So, Cambridge Analytica. Facebook has been used as a source | of electioneering data for years before that. See for | example Eitan Hersh's testimony. In fact, I've read | articles bragging about how inventive the political | technology using social networking profiles is, for a | couple of electoral cycles before that - they may still be | somewhere in HN archives even. And of course, selling the | very same data to advertisers, maybe repackaged a bit | differently but the same source and same data set, is the | whole business model of Facebook. And it somehow never | bothered anyone until Cambridge Analytica. Why is that? | artificial wrote: | Most don't have a problem uploading address books and | contacts into these platforms. I think it depends which | team it is. Companies? Cool! Political Party you agree | with, sure! They mined the social graph and Zuck reached | out to them and said they're on the same team and didn't | restrict access while they mined 50 million people. Don't | forget Zygna! | treeman79 wrote: | Bigger concern is Facebook actively blocking stories the | government doesn't like. | throwawaymeta4 wrote: | Its much much worse than just psychological experiments. | Meta currently stands accused as an enabler of a genocide | in Myanmar [1], and provides a platform to spread massive | hate against Muslims in India and elsewhere [2,3,4,5]. For | folks trying to do bothsidesism here and bring out how | great they've been, I am sorry but there is no excuse for | enablers of Fascism. | | 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar- | facebo... 2. https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/facebook- | hate-speech-india-... 3. | https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-services-are-used- | to-s... 4. https://www.npr.org/2021/04/08/985143101/stop- | lying-muslim-r... 5. | https://theintercept.com/2019/12/07/facebook-mark- | zuckerberg... | j0hnyl wrote: | It's naive of you to think that this is a Meta problem. | Just by surfing the internet you're subject to all the same | psyops by organizations that are arguably even worse than | CA. | smodo wrote: | It doesn't say that's what they think. About Meta though, | we know. 'Others are worse' is not a convincing argument. | mgraczyk wrote: | But hating everything makes your ideology prima facie bad | Siira wrote: | Conducting "psychological" experiments without "consent" is | the only way to do science. Perhaps in this instance the | knowledge gained is used in the ad industry and not | benefiting society, but the nature of the research is to be | admired and replicated. | PKop wrote: | either they charge for social media or they attempt to grow | by ad targeting, or social media is maybe banned through | regulation to stop what you describe. | | I think maybe your beef is with the nature of technology | today and/or our current culture that enables/glorifies | it's mass use. What's the solution? | cloutchaser wrote: | WoahNoun wrote: | Yes, however, Obama campaign was very different from CA. | | >The Obama campaign collected data with its own campaign | app, complied with Facebook's terms of service and, most | important in my view, received permission from users | before using the data. | | https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/clarence-page/ct- | pers... | | CA lied to users and violated FB's ToS. | | >And numerous other developers, including the makers of | such games as FarmVille and the dating app Tinder, also | used the same Facebook developer tool that Cambridge | Analytica used. | | >Like all app developers, Kogan requested and gained | access to information from people after they chose to | download his app. His app, "thisisyourdigitallife," | offered a personality prediction, and billed itself on | Facebook as "a research app used by psychologists." | Approximately 270,000 people downloaded the app. In so | doing, they gave their consent for Kogan to access | information such as the city they set on their profile, | or content they had liked, as well as more limited | information about friends who had their privacy settings | set to allow it. | | >Although Kogan gained access to this information in a | legitimate way and through the proper channels that | governed all developers on Facebook at that time, he did | not subsequently abide by our rules. By passing | information on to a third party, including SCL/Cambridge | Analytica and Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies, | he violated our platform policies. When we learned of | this violation in 2015, we removed his app from Facebook | and demanded certifications from Kogan and all parties he | had given data to that the information had been | destroyed. Cambridge Analytica, Kogan and Wylie all | certified to us that they destroyed the data. | | https://about.fb.com/news/2018/03/suspending-cambridge- | analy... | Dangeranger wrote: | This statement is a false equivalency.[0] The Obama 2012 | campaign did not violate the Facebook TOS, and received | permission to acess the data from users. | | Please stop trying to use what-aboutism to fuel a | partisan divide. | | [0] https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/obama-campaign- | advisers... | uluyol wrote: | Link? This is upsetting if true. | adamsb6 wrote: | Starting around 2016 the New York Times decided that | coverage had to be negative: | https://twitter.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1588231892792328192 | | Consider how this may have helped you to develop your | opinion. | richbell wrote: | They gave specific examples of negative things that | Facebook has done. This is a pretty shallow dismissal of | their criticism, even if their comment is a bit heavy- | handed. | adamsb6 wrote: | I won't rehash the A/B discussion, there's plenty of | other people talking about it. | | The Cambridge Analytica thing probably didn't have a | meaningful impact on the elections. Facebook was dumb to | allow partner apps access to so much data and rely on | those partners to follow Facebook's policies, but they | recognized the mistake and probably overcorrected. | | All the other coverage probably serves to reinforce and | amplify negative sentiments about Facebook, and a ton of | it wasn't deserved. People cite the Rohingya, I remember | also a news cycle about Facebook profiting from hate | speech. | | Those things happened, but Facebook had also built | probably the most expensive and effective hate speech | filtering operation in the world. That it be 100% | effective is not a reasonable goal. With billions of | pieces of content even 99.999% effectiveness will result | in examples that the press can point to reinforce a | narrative about Facebook profiting from hate speech. | | I doubt there ever was any profit in serving hate speech. | The ad revenue from filter misses would not have been big | enough to pay for the filtering operation itself. | richbell wrote: | > The Cambridge Analytica thing probably didn't have a | meaningful impact on the elections. | | That's a pretty big claim to make without evidence. At | the very least I think we can agree that political | parties wouldn't be investing so much money into social | media campaigns (analytics, marketing, etc.) if they | didn't think it was impactful. | blobbers wrote: | Take my downvote. "Psychological experiments" on users is | what every company; user and market research. Enabling | "psyops" is simply building a platform; this isn't the | first platform that his been misused or scraped for other | purposes. You get spam robo dialers? It wasn't from meta... | etc. etc. etc. | rossjudson wrote: | You seem very sure of what you know, and very confident | about how the people working at Meta think and act. Do you | have any direct experience? Or know anyone who works there? | jjav wrote: | Not OP but the things OP is saying are well covered in | the press, no need to know anyone there. | wahnfrieden wrote: | Those are just facts that have been reported credibly. | There's worse they didn't mention. Why are you being so | reactionary? | sweezyjeezy wrote: | I think they were making a statement about the company | not the staff. | andirk wrote: | Remember that Facebook "whistleblower" revealed that | Facebook "put profits over people"? That will never not be | funny. | godelski wrote: | We can condone the good behaviors and condemn the bad ones. | It is important to do both because if all we do is condemn | then there is no pressure to do the right thing. If all you | can do is evil then you'll only ever be evil and criticism | will fall upon deaf ears. | | A lot of people here agree with you about Meta's faults, | even me. But that doesn't mean we can't appreciate the good | they've done. Even if it isn't much and even if it is | vastly outweighed by the bad. We should still use positive | reinforcement to pressure companies to do the right thing. | murat124 wrote: | Hear hear. | NoPicklez wrote: | Hear hear. | jahsome wrote: | I understand the sentiment. I agree there should be | accountability. | | With that in mind, I'd like to point out root merely | expressed an anecdote about above and beyond humane | treatment of employees from the CEO. Parent described the | hacker-friendly culture. Those appear to be first hand | accounts. | | How does your comment relate contribute to that discussion? | | Further, how does over the top and genericized outrage and | harm wishing on a cohort of innocent people advance society | in any meaningful ways? | webmobdev wrote: | _Work culture_ and _values_ both matter. I found @Leires | comment insightful because it jarred me to the reality | that while we are appreciating the good in someone, we | shouldn 't forget their capability to be bad. Can a | Gandhian be comfortable working at Hitler's gas chamber? | Both had amazing leadership qualities. What attracts us | to either of them are the values we think they represent. | zaptheimpaler wrote: | Your argument is essentially that the company treated its | employees well, so who cares what it did to users. Who | gave you the right to decide the discussion is framed | around how Meta treats employees rather than what it does | for the entire world? | jahsome wrote: | I made no such argument. | | I asked a question, no conclusions drawn. If I had a | point, it's that the comment was off topic with regard to | the comment it replied to, and warrants its own tree of | discussion. It was a rant; There wasn't even an attempt | at a segue or good faith effort to provide contrast. | | What "gives me the right to decide how the discussion is | framed" are the hn guidelines (which you violated | yourself by presenting a strawman). | aussiesnack wrote: | But is it compulsory to be so Manichaean? Have you really | never seen someone (or group of people, or company) | behave well in one context, and badly in another? | kenhwang wrote: | I never had much complaint about Facebook's engineering | culture, it seems like they get more right than the other | giant tech companies. | | Facebook's failures were always with business morals and | product direction, and it's the latter that they really | really screwed up on this time with the attempt to turn their | cash cow into TikTok and the investment into the metaverse. | ASalazarMX wrote: | Maybe it got to his head, like child movie stars that never | enjoyed a normal childhood? Being a hacker is no guarantee of | being a well adapted adult, specially if your hobby | transforms into an international behemoth in just 15 years. | princevegeta89 wrote: | Meta may sound like an unethical company frequently from a | product standpoint, but Zuckerberg is a very good guy in | general and he treats employees very well. | forgotusername6 wrote: | Reminds me of Hank Scorpio | kridsdale2 wrote: | I'm pretty sure Scorpio's lair of paradise was inspired by | Microsoft in Redmond. In the 90s, it was legendarily posh | with how well the people were treated. Nobody in corporate | america had that quality of fitness centers, on-site cafes, | etc. | | Google was the next to up the ante in mid-2000s with things | like daycare, a ball pit, food, drycleaning. All equally | mind-blowing to the populace who expected a workplace would | have an elevator, and a coffee machine nobody refills. | Exmoor wrote: | I don't believe MS ever had onsite fitness centers. | Employees got subsidized memberships to offsite gyms, but | the only things onsite were/are playfields and showers | for bike commuters, etc. | | Food might have been okay by 90s standards, but was | pretty mediocre overall until ~2010 when they started | redoing all the cafes to have a higher quality food. | Still, it was slightly subsidized but not free and many, | many employees went offsite or brought food from home. | lazyasciiart wrote: | Yes, there was a gym next to the playfields on main | campus. | callmeal wrote: | Company over Country right? | consumer451 wrote: | Are there any examples of a CEO choosing country over | company in the modern USA? | | Not defending Zuck here, would just like to read about that | if possible. | rawgabbit wrote: | He is not perfect but the only person I can think of is | Sal Khan of khanacademy. His content is completely free | and provides free prep for SAT and other subjects. | vincentkriek wrote: | Would be against the law right? You are required to | maximize stockholder value | prottog wrote: | > You are required to maximize stockholder value | | This is legal fiction that has no bearing in the kinds of | subjects that it often gets brought up in. Simply put, | those responsible for a company (e.g. officers of a | corporation) have a fiduciary duty towards its owners | (e.g. the shareholders), and it means that the owners | would have legal recourse against the officers if they | were provably pissing money away on things that don't | benefit the company at all. | | That latter part is a high bar and critically does not | mean that they are, for example, legally required to | prioritize quarterly profits over the long-term success | of the company or to pay employees as little as possible, | as is often mentioned. It just means that officers must | take action that furthers the interests of the company in | the way that they prudently and reasonably see fit. | colinmhayes wrote: | > legally required to prioritize quarterly profits over | the long-term success of the company or to pay employees | as little as possible, as is often mentioned. | | Obviously this isn't a legal requirement, but pretty much | every CEO would be out of a job if they choose country | over company. Shareholders are generally not interested | in furthering national geopolitics. | lazyasciiart wrote: | > Shareholders are generally not interested in furthering | national geopolitics. | | I don't think that's true. Look at all the corporate | action about Ukraine for an example of interest in | geopolitics - lots of donations, public statements, etc. | And then there's companies actually in Ukraine, or next | door - when politics gets unstable enough, contributing | to the stability/security of the country over the short | term of the company looks like the right move. Evaluating | when that point is reached is probably about as | contentious as any other decision in politics. | danaris wrote: | This is a popular deflection of responsibility that is, | in fact, entirely false. | | You are required to abide by shareholder decisions at | official meetings, and generally not act against | shareholder interests, but there is absolutely no law | stating that you must act to maximize shareholder value. | (And it's a damn good thing that's the case; things are | bad enough as it is.) | gausswho wrote: | How does this fictional canard stop being posted to HN? | Firmwarrior wrote: | I think it's good if it gets posted and debunked as often | as possible to maximize the knowledge that it is false | colinmhayes wrote: | You're required to put forth a good faith effort to act | in the shareholders interests, but no court would say | choosing country over company breaks that law. The CEO | would certainly be fired though, so it still won't | happen. | artificial wrote: | Quest CEO refused to spy on Americans. | https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/10/qwest-ceo-nsa- | punished... | yonaguska wrote: | Mike Lindell, arguably. He lost a ton of business by | injecting himself into politics and doing what he thought | was putting his country first. | dtjb wrote: | I'd be interested in the stats, but my perception is that | he (and his products) are much more well-known now than | before. I always saw his foray into politics as a very | aggressive niching strategy. He saw Trump's momentum and | hitched his wagon. | | He might have lost Costco and their low margins, but he | picked up an army of high-margin D2C sympathizers who | have been shown to be generous with their money (if the | cause is right). | lupire wrote: | Lindell just wanted to sell to gullible Trunp fans and | make himself a celebrity and power broker for a fascist. | The good of the country wasn't a factor. | ipaddr wrote: | Blame Sheryl Sandberg for many of the unethical decisions | worik wrote: | > Blame Sheryl Sandberg for many of the unethical decisions | | Yea. Helpful to have a token girl to take the blame for the | boys. Helpful | gausswho wrote: | Suggesting she was a token girl is the greater misogyny | truthwhisperer wrote: | ipaddr wrote: | Not a great look to introduce sexism into the | conversation. Nor labeling grown adults as names we call | little children. | | Sheryl was given credit for creating current facebook | culture. Before Sheryl employees had unaudited to your | private photos for example. Are you going to say she | deserves no credit and we better credit the boys instead? | If not then she must accept any failures that come from | that culture. | asdfman123 wrote: | People are multifaceted. I'm sure he is good to his | employees, like people are describing, but that ain't it. | | He's repeatedly betrayed user trust, and eventually what goes | around comes around. | JohnBooty wrote: | People are multifaceted. I'm sure he is good to | his employees, like people are describing, but that ain't | it. | | This is refreshing to read. I would like to see more of | this rather than "Zuck good" or "Zuck bad." | | Of course, for those immediately impacted and hurt/angered | by his actions I certainly wouldn't blame anybody for | venting. | | But it would be much more productive to talk about "thing | Zuck did good" or "thing Zuck did bad." | worik wrote: | > He's repeatedly betrayed user trust, and eventually what | goes around comes around. | | This. Yes. | | Facebook came within a whisker of establishing themselves | as the central communications hub for the planet. They | ruined their own business from greed. Grew it huge (instead | of long steady growth) and it has collapsed. | | Greed | | It would not have been a good thing if they became "... | He's repeatedly betrayed user trust, and eventually what | goes around comes around. " so we are all better off, | probably. | | I hope the story of Zuck and FB become business school | lessons on "greed is bad and will destroy you". Not what | they taught me at business school (I was there in 2008) but | they should have | KaiserPro wrote: | > Greed | | No, incompetence and naivety. | | They were young, dumb and all from the same | college/upbringing. | GCA10 wrote: | There's a classic Tim O'Reilly line about the importance | of "creating more value than you capture." | | Early Facebook was very good at this! I used their ads | platform a lot in 2009-10 to raise engagement for a small | non-profit that I was helping. The Facebook experience | was simple, easy and great value for the money. | | And then the ads ecosystem gradually got "optimized." Our | nonprofit still kept using it for a while, but it was | clear that the focus no longer was in providing great | experiences for us -- or our intended audience. Pricing | went up; as did efforts to steer me into packages that | worked better for FB than me. It was as if someone said: | "Stop creating 2x the value you capture. Move toward | 1.01x" | | FB made many billions over the next decade. But it | drained the ecosystem's goodwill. Old-economy industrial | giants usually took 80-100 years to paint themselves into | this corner. Kind of amazing that FB has done it in less | than 20. | jjcon wrote: | How exactly were they greedy in particular? To me it | seems they are doing what every other company is, I'm | unaware of Meta engaging in anything greedy that is out | of the ordinary, is that not the case (genuinely asking) | and why do you think that is tied to these layoffs? | m0llusk wrote: | They tried to connect people, but that didn't make money. | So they pivoted to ads, but that didn't bring steady | growth. So they fueled participation with tools like the | Like button which stoked conflict from the start. Had | they been cautious about their steps at any point then | problems could have been avoided. | jonny_eh wrote: | There's the video metrics scandal: | https://www.ccn.com/facebook-lied-about-video-metrics/ | | They lied to content creators about how much money could | be earned by switching to video on FB. This bankrupted | multiple businesses, including Collegehumor and | FunnyOrDie: https://twitter.com/adamconover/status/118320 | 9875859333120?l... | rawgabbit wrote: | Zuckerberg was hauled in to US Congress more than once | and was chastised for all kinds of wrongdoing. E.g. | spreading foreign propaganda in US elections, encouraging | extremist violence. FB chase for user engagement has made | it into the modern version of a gladiatorial freak show. | If broadcasting two one legged gladiators fight to the | death will draw eyeballs, Zuckbot will do it. | asdfman123 wrote: | Greed and arrogance. Zuckerberg doesn't respect his users | and everyone knows it. Eventually you break trust to a | degree where it can't be repaired--no "investments" or | "metrics" or "new offerings" will fix it. | | You can fool some of the people some of the time... | nonameiguess wrote: | This is the key thing that people need to realize. Being a | very nice person is simply not enough to be a good person. | Hitler was famously kind to his dogs and domestic staff. He | even personally intervened to save Ernst Hess, his Jewish | CO from WWI. Big-time "but I have black friends" vibes. | bergenty wrote: | Honestly I'm on the Zucc train. I want him to succeed at VR and | bring about the paradigm shift. I honestly don't get all the | sheep like hate he gets on the internet. | infecto wrote: | Same boat as you. I understand the privacy concerns and the | fear that Facebook is changing society for the worse, all of | this is worth discussing but I don't see it as an evil | company trying to actively ruin people. | | Truly excited to see how far they can push VR and AI. | JohnAaronNelson wrote: | Facebook (and social media in general) has made the world a | more divided place full of sadder and angrier people. He runs | a company that optimizes for that scenario while accruing | unimaginable sums of capital, and he doubled down with Meta. | Hmm I wonder why some people are not fans. | sangnoir wrote: | Social media is just a tool for political atomization. | | People were already angry on AM radio and cable "news" | channels. Gerrymandering works on political maps and | demographics - politicians have figured that by boxing | voters into bins and away from the center, they can have | their votes forever. | xvector wrote: | Meta has been amazing and enables me to talk to family | members anywhere in the world easily. | commandlinefan wrote: | > If it were just about the money | | Sadly, today's layoffs were probably related to it not being | just about the money then... no matter how good your intentions | are, when the money runs out, it's gone. | dunkmaster wrote: | Even Zuckerberg acknowledges that it is about money in the | linked article: | | "Fundamentally, we're making all these changes for two | reasons: our revenue outlook is lower than we expected at the | beginning of this year, and we want to make sure we're | operating efficiently across both Family of Apps and Reality | Labs. " | mathverse wrote: | It is about trimming the fat mainly. Meta is still | absolutely a money printing machine. | Gene_Parmesan wrote: | In fact, this is one of those truisms about the "down" | side of the classical business cycle - that recessions | partly function as an excuse to cut inefficiencies. How | accurate this truism is, I don't know. | tibbon wrote: | Proof is that Meta stock is up today. I don't like this | system of value, but it's what we've got. | trey-jones wrote: | Today's price action is rarely a reflection of today's | news. | groos wrote: | "trimming the fat" - this is such an unfortunate phrase. | In evolutionary terms, fat is what let species survive | lean periods. | ambrose2 wrote: | This _is_ a lean period, and the fat that meta had | enabled them to cut fat rather than cut muscle or bone, | making them now more lean, but still strong. The fat they | had served its purpose similar to how fat serves its | purpose during famine. | colinmhayes wrote: | and in modern terms it makes you a social pariah. Really | though trimming the fat probably refers to a butcher | removing the unwanted flesh from meat, not losing weight. | artificial wrote: | They hired 42,000 during COVID. Lots of companies did the | same, Twitter added 3500, the largest since they started. | actually_a_dog wrote: | You really think "he had zero obligation to them?" The term | "obligation" has meanings well outside the concept of | contractual relations. | mensetmanusman wrote: | Amazing what an iOS update did. | lovecg wrote: | And yet Apple is not the one getting anti-trust scrutiny... | funny how that works. | AnonHP wrote: | Apart from that, I think the bigger ongoing folly here is this | whole Metaverse thing. | mensetmanusman wrote: | I used to think that, but recently tried some AR glasses that | filled my whole usable field of view with an editable | PowerPoint slide with clear text... yeah, the tech seems like | a big deal for this new digital world | lambda_dn wrote: | This is the slow demise of Facebook, if their pivot to | AR/VR/Metaverse fails to catch on things will go sideways fast. | jacobsenscott wrote: | The world runs on certain types of software. I doesn't run on | social media, or video streaming, or "AI/ML", or search. So it | doesn't actually run on FAANG companies. It is no surprise they | are shedding workers when the free money runs out. But if you are | willing to work on "boring software" that provides actual | economic value - logistics, HR/Payroll, or really anything people | actually pay to use because it boosts their productivity - I | wouldn't worry too much. | | This was true during the .com bust, 2008 dip, and it will be true | now. | pavlov wrote: | Nobody watches digital video or searches for stuff online, so | you should focus on payroll software? Is this career advice | from a 1992 time warp? | yeahwhatever10 wrote: | OP is sour-grapes, saying the world doesn't run on search is | an unbelievable statement in 2022. | yalogin wrote: | I don't agree at all. These companies are all super important | and provide valuable services. If they vanish suddenly tomorrow | that hole will be felt by every single human one way or the | other. You are going back to 1970s for your comparison but that | is not where we are | jacobsenscott wrote: | I'll grant you that for the AAG part of FAANG, but I can't | think of a single useful product from FB. If FB itself | vanished overnight people would just go back to sharing their | cat pictures with family over sms (as they are doing anyway), | and all the dusty unused Occulus headsets in drawers would | stop receiving updates. Otherwise.... | kamarg wrote: | Many small businesses use their FB page exclusively because | they aren't big enough to bother with a real website. There | will be a lot of pain for many small employers and their | employees if FB software were to go away. | yalogin wrote: | I don't agree. As much as I don't like FB, I have to admit | that they provided a lot of value. People found joy in | their products. Facebook before it became this cesspool | attracted tons of people. WhatsApp is still hugely popular | and useful. Instagram made countless people lots of money | and create new means of livelihood. | MikusR wrote: | I can't think of a single useful product from Amazon, Apple | and currently Netflix. But I use stuff by Google and Meta | daily. | ryanbrunner wrote: | If your bar for "important company" is "no competitive | alternative or reasonable substitute exists for this one | companies product", I'd struggle to think of a single | "important company" in the entire world. | echelon wrote: | > The world runs on certain types of software. I doesn't run on | social media, or video streaming, or "AI/ML", or search. So it | doesn't actually run on FAANG companies. | | To the extent that the world runs on energy and industrials, | you're right. | | To the extent that tech soaks up human attention, directs | spending and emotions, and now serves as the basis for | communication and once manual mental tasks, I think you're | wrong. | | We're seeing that this is cyclical and that access to cheap | debt has perturbed the sentiment. | ryanbrunner wrote: | Plenty of businesses have Facebook or another Facebook property | (i.e. IG) as one of or the only way to get in touch with them. | Plenty of individuals use Whatsapp or Facebook as their primary | contact database and messaging platform. | | The "post news articles on a feed" is probably not essential to | too many people, but the messaging and communication features | are in a lot of cases. | [deleted] | efficax wrote: | tens of thousands if not millions of small, single proprietor | or only slightly larger businesses are run entirely through | facebook. it's the only way to learn about them, their hours, | or contact them, and often the only way to buy things from them | online. | parthdesai wrote: | > So it doesn't actually run on FAANG companies | | Disagree, a lot of businesses do use GSuite and also a lot of | people in the world do definitely use youtube/gmail/gmaps. | Samething with apple, people will still use iPhones and a lot | of people in the first world at least will still use macs. Only | companies your comments apply to are Facebook and Netflix, and | even then Whatsapp is basically an essential app to have if | you're not form North America | samhuk wrote: | I would say that any software that has 4 billion MAU quite | reasonably can be classified as "the world runs on it"-tier | software. | | If I had to guess, what I think you're doing is you're letting | your opinion about the _morality_ of FAANG-like software (ads, | tracking, mal-influencing, etc.) be a judge on it 's _utility_. | | FAANG-like software is like fossil fuels. Fossil fuels, like | much of FAANG-software, have many immoral aspects, yet they | have utility to the point of "the world runs on it". | | Google, DDG etc. connected the internet. Facebook, twitter etc. | connected people _on_ the internet. I 'de say that's something | of a big deal. | Maro wrote: | Facebook (and Google Search) are the most widely used software | on Earth, ~3-4B MAUs each. I don't know what else something | needs to do to qualify for "world runs on [it]". | nsxwolf wrote: | There's way, way more software that exists. All that boring | enterprise Java and Spring stuff HN loves to ridicule | represents the dark matter of the software engineering | universe. There's tons of money in it and armies of | developers working away without the praise or adulation of | their Bay Area betters, but they're making good money and | putting food on the table. | jacobsenscott wrote: | What are those 3B people doing? Spreading conspiracy | theories, looking at cat pics, and searching for porn. | Whenever someone is on FB or google they are _less_ | productive, not more. Sure, a small fraction of those people | are using FB or google for "work", but their work is usually | just finding ways to get more people to waste more time on | google or FB, or some other nonproductive activity people get | paid for. | newsclues wrote: | There is a big difference between something that is highly | used, and something that is highly valuable. | achenet wrote: | both are highly valuable - to every business that | advertises on them, and to users who find information | (Google) or connection (Facebook) via those platforms. | newsclues wrote: | I really don't see the unique value of Facebook on that | level, other that keep certain people off other social | media platforms. | bombcar wrote: | Facebook disappearing tomorrow would cause a bit of a | kerfuffle but life would go on. | | Same for Google search. | | But if VISA disappeared, there'd be hell to pay. | | In reality none of these companies will disappear | overnight, but they could get remaindered pretty quickly, | because they're not that "important" per se. | | That's not to say the companies don't do things and | people don't find value, but Facebook disappearing is an | entire different class of thing from Exxon-Mobil | shuttering. | bradleyankrom wrote: | To regular users, yeah, the impact would be tough but | materially trivial (maybe?). But to the small businesses | for which FB, Instagram, and Google advertising are their | primary sources of customers? Devastating. | bombcar wrote: | If a small business's primary source of customers is | advertising, they're already dead (or something very | niche, like a funeral home). | | Primary source of _new_ customers, maybe, but a small | business should be built around acquiring customers and | keeping them for a longtime. | alsodumb wrote: | You are grossly underestimating how many business rely on | Google and Facebook. | | A small example: a ton of delivery companies depend on | Google maps API for localization and route planning - | think Doordash, Uber, etc. Not just that, lots of transit | agencies and freight companies use Google API for | planning and optimization. Half of the work force | probably can't reach their destination without Google | maps. | | I'm pretty sure many critical components of Exxon-Mobil | depend on some tools provided by Google. | Lendal wrote: | That's why he specified "Google search" and not "Google" | istinetz wrote: | >But if VISA disappeared, there'd be hell to pay. | | Would it, though? | | I'll just get a mastercard. 5$, a trip to the bank, ezpz. | Or pay for stuff via Revolut. Or cash. | | There'd be a bit of chaos, for like 2 weeks. Invoices | will still get paid, ATMs would still work. | ryanbrunner wrote: | It'd probably be more straightforward than that. Your | bank would switch over their cards to Mastercard, and | send you a new one in the mail. I don't even think it's | inconceivable that the Mastercard card # range is | salvaged and you can retain the same card number. | badpun wrote: | > provides actual economic value | | > HR | [deleted] | Reason077 wrote: | Sure, FAANG may make a lot of frivolous stuff (Metaverse, | anyone?) but also a lot of boring software that the world | really does run on now days. Google especially. | jacobsenscott wrote: | Sure - as does amazon and apple - I doubt you'll see layoffs | in those specific departments at those companies. I suppose I | shouldn't have said FAANG as most of them have some core | business that makes sense, Meta being the exception. | TremendousJudge wrote: | Maybe not in the US, but WhatsApp is pretty important | messaging infrastructure in big chunks of the world | marcinzm wrote: | >It is no surprise they are shedding workers when the free | money runs out. | | Free money hasn't run out, it's simply stopped growing as | quickly. Then again it grew massively during COVID so FAANG is | still ahead of where they'd have been if not for COVID. Meta | revenue is DOUBLE what it was 3 years ago. | DebtDeflation wrote: | It absolutely has. 8 months ago the Fed Funds rate was | effectively 0% and now it's 4% and headed higher. That may | not mean anything to you, but it means everything to VCs, | banks, investors, and the market overall. | type-r wrote: | I mean, almost all of software _does_ run on AWS / Google | Cloud. | triceratops wrote: | The world doesn't run on "AI/ML" or search? You must inhabit a | different world than me. Do you run to the library every time | you can't find some information? | jacobsenscott wrote: | Of course not, but 99.999% of all searches are frivolous. | datalopers wrote: | An inverted index is not AI/ML. | automatic6131 wrote: | No, but do that partially 100,000 times with weights | overfitted to a sample dataset and you are :^) | dcchambers wrote: | I would argue search is highly valuable. | | Also I expect video streaming (of some format, whether it's | "traditional living room content" like Netflix/Disney or | mobile-first like Youtube or TikTok) to maintain its | entertainment dominance during a recession. People like their | cheap escapes from the real world. It's been shown time and | again that during recessions cheap entertainment like cinema | (or these days, video streaming) doesn't die off. | idk1 wrote: | I would certainly make a case the the world runs on the two As | and the G of FAANG. The world runs a fair amount on Amazon | deliveries and aws. The world runs a fair amount on gmail and | google searches. And the world runs on a fair amount of Apple | products. | rubyist5eva wrote: | > I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that. | | I wonder what this means in practice? Nothing? Ok, great. | stillametamate wrote: | amelius wrote: | How many of them are severely disgruntled? Is my data safe? | oars wrote: | Is it better for Google and Amazon to try recruiting this | available talent straightaway or keep waiting? | strikelaserclaw wrote: | what makes you think those orgs aren't bloated as well ? | LongShip87 wrote: | I recently left my well paying job in a startup to pursue my | hobbies for a few months. Now I am looking for a job again. I | wonder how will I find a job with so many Meta and Twitter | engineers flooding the market :/ | | PS: I have only worked with startups including a YC startup. | om42 wrote: | We're hiring! Reach out to me via email, it's in my profile. | dustedcodes wrote: | Did they hire 11k people during the pandemic? If not then the | given reason for the layoffs are clearly not the full story. | justapassenger wrote: | They hired way more than that. | somedude895 wrote: | They give two reasons: | | - Hiring spree during Covid | | - Economic slowdown, eg lower ad spends | habibur wrote: | Head count had been around 40k in 2019. | dustedcodes wrote: | Wow so they increased their head count by more than double? | How do you even onboard 44.6k people in 3 years? No wonder | that they weren't very productive. | nappy-doo wrote: | Pedantically, it's more than that as there's replacement | too. | hbn wrote: | > Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration | that would continue even after the pandemic ended. | | I mean people who had financial gain on the line (like | yourselves) pretended this was the case so you could cash in at | the time and then pull the rug once it wasn't working any more | (as you're doing now), but everyone with half a brain knew it | wasn't sustainable. | | Literally how could that acceleration be permanent? With the | insane exponential growth inflated by covid in 2020/2021, you'd | have a few years before these big tech companies would have to be | gaining more users than exist on earth. | sabellito wrote: | > but everyone with half a brain knew it wasn't sustainable. | | Did you short all these companies and are currently a | billionaire? Since it took only half a brain to know. | enumjorge wrote: | Isn't part of shorting also predicting when the drop will | happen? | three_seagrass wrote: | Yeah, I shorted during the pandemic but missed the drop | several times. Everyone knew to short, it's the when that | nobody could fathom. | mattnewton wrote: | He's also probably not an accredited investor, selling a | stock short in any significant volume is not like making a | retail purchase. It can be quite hard to make money off | knowing a stock will crash, and that's not even accounting | for needing to know _when_ precisely since most of the ways | involve short dated options. I gave up after investigating | ways to bet on interest rate hikes and market corrections, | and just went cash heavy at the end of 2021. That doesn't | make you a billionaire it makes you just not lose principle. | [deleted] | stillametamate wrote: | RandomBK wrote: | Buying some puts also works. | throwaw20221107 wrote: | lol exactly (https://xkcd.com/451) | | "i need to short a stock" | | "have you tried options?" | twoWhlsGud wrote: | the economist John Maynard Keynes notably said, "the markets | can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." | | A good thing to remember when you're tempted to sell short. | Invictus0 wrote: | Qub3d wrote: | It's a good counterpoint to the equally throw away | argument that "if you disagreed with x you should have | shorted it". | | The problem with shorting is you can't just be right | about the eventual direction... You have to be pretty | bang on with the _timing_ as well. | | Therefore it's absolutely possible for people to suspect | or have strong belief that something is unsustainable | without having the liquidity or confidence on timing to | take action on it. | | No it's not to say there aren't Perma bears and other I | told you so people crawling out of the woodwork, but that | doesn't mean that every person who didn't capitalize on | this is Monday-morning quarterbacking. | MagicMoonlight wrote: | I don't know how you think investing works, but you can't | become a billionaire unless you are already a 900 millionaire | roflyear wrote: | FB is making $30+bn a year profit, and is laying off people to | reduce costs by $2b. They could continue to pay these people. | | Large corporations are insane. Every small and medium company | would wait to do layoffs until it threatened the business. Some | even until after that point. Layoffs are awful. | | Large corps, nah. Just lay people off if we get a little | nervous! | | Note, I don't think these corps are entitled to employ you. | Absolutely not. I just think the corporate situation we got | ourselves in is really nasty. | 8b16380d wrote: | Completely agree. | gregshap wrote: | In the last four quarters FB's reported profit went from $10B | to $7.5B to $6B to $4B. The business is threatened. | abstractmath wrote: | > Large corporations are insane. Every small and medium | company would wait to do layoffs until it threatened the | business. Some even until after that point | | This is super idealized. How many layoffs have been going on | in startup land recently? | skrebbel wrote: | You mean teeny tiny cutesy startups like Stripe and Twilio? | abstractmath wrote: | Look at the companies on http://layoffs.fyi | | Lots of small and medium sized companies, and I know for | some that it was not their last move before going under. | | We had a hiring boom driven by cheap money, which is now | ending. Now we get the inverse. | | Has nothing to do with insane large corps and saintly | SMBs. | tomtheelder wrote: | While I agree it's very idealized, a lot of those startups | probably are legitimately financially threatened in the | immediate term in a way that Meta most certainly isn't. | roflyear wrote: | It is absolutely idealized. | martindbp wrote: | They are laying off people because the value of the company | just tanked 70% in a few months. The value of a company | contains all the future estimated discounted earnings, the | trend of earnings matters more than current earnings. The | actions of a company is determined by what its shareholders | want, which is to maximize stock price, not be satisfied with | X billions in profits when the stock is down 70%. The actions | of companies will remain a mystery to people who do not | understand this. | oblio wrote: | The value of a company contains Lalaland logic, as Tesla, | Toyota and GameStop prove. | | The link between actual business logic and company | valuation broke down around 2010. | roflyear wrote: | Well, yeah. But I think that mechanism is pretty awful. | xyzzyz wrote: | They lay people off, because companies _always_ want to lay | _some_ people off, and doing so in normal times is even less | palatable. Employees are not fungible, and _some_ employees | are worth to companies less than the company wants. | | This is not to say that every single person being laid off is | of low value, that's not true. It's just it is hard to lay | off _only_ low performers, some average or even good | performer will always be collateral damage. But, overall, if | you want well-performing companies to not do mass layoffs on | recession, the only way is to make it more palatable to | people to see mass firings in good times. | rajman187 wrote: | > FB is making $30+bn a year profit, and is laying off people | to reduce costs by $2b. They could continue to pay these | people. | | The quarterly revenue was about $27bn but net profit $4bn, so | you're off by a factor of 7 or more on the estimate. R&D | expenses alone are $9bn, and the largest operational expense | is employee comp, by a LOT, distant second being data | centers. For added measure, they also reduced real estate | footprint along with the 11k employees. | | The company has also essentially doubled in size every year | since ~2013, and that was certainly encouraged by false | positives in terms of future projections when the pandemic | hit. So this is really not surprising, and a major cost- | saving function for them. | riku_iki wrote: | > R&D expenses alone are $9bn | | Are RSUs included into this number? | _zoltan_ wrote: | why would RSU (a comp element) be included in R&D | spending? | disgruntledphd2 wrote: | Because r&d spending at tech companies means engineers | and product. | roflyear wrote: | Mmm, I was looking at 2021 profit. Anyway, 16b a year is | not a factor of 7 off from 30b. | RandomBK wrote: | 7.4% of profit (2/27) versus 50% of profit (2/4) was the | factor of ~7 parent was referring to. | | Granted these are comparing annual cost versus quarterly | figures, but the overall narrative still stands. | rajman187 wrote: | Yeah 2020-21 was wild. Revenue is not profit, though. | jbverschoor wrote: | Small companies don't pay over 200k + perks for someone who | just graduated | 22SAS wrote: | Trading firms are small companies, and most of us | definitely pay that (sometimes a lot more) to new | graduates. | pm90 wrote: | SFBA companies do, actually. | martius wrote: | I read this as "we expected to stay at the levels we were at at | the beginning of 2022, but instead things went back (down) to | the levels of 2019". | hbn wrote: | They specifically said "acceleration" though, not velocity | | Meaning they expected to continue picking up speed, not | maintain their speed | dolmen wrote: | Many thought that commerce was switching to online. | | But in fact stores reopened and people went back to massively | buy at stores instead of offline. Parenthesis is closed. | fullshark wrote: | That is the premise behind the metaverse, more and more | activity going online. | tombert wrote: | Fantastic. I just got laid off from my (non-Meta) job, and now I | have to compete with thousands of other software engineers. | | I suppose I knew that the cushy absurd-salary-days of software | engineering had to come to a close at some point, but I guess I | was just hoping it would happening after I retired. | tkiolp4 wrote: | Just said you worked for Meta in your resume and you just being | laid off. Bang! Instant hire. | MasterYoda wrote: | 87000 people is working at meta just now. What are all those | people doing? Why is so many needed? How many are developer, | manager, marketers, seller, anti spam/desinformation stuff etc | etc? | sh4rks wrote: | 87,000 people and they still can't fix the bugs in the | Instagram android app | dolmen wrote: | > We made the decision to remove access to most Meta systems for | people leaving today given the amount of access to sensitive | information. But we're keeping email addresses active throughout | the day so everyone can say farewell. | | E-mail address still working for the day? Is this the standard | way to layoff employees in the US? | dpkirchner wrote: | I wonder if they've limited outgoing emails so they may only be | sent to internal users. | kodisha wrote: | Will the remaining staff use "Mark as safe" feature? /s | derwiki wrote: | I've been joking that LinkedIn should build this. | didibus wrote: | > But these measures alone won't bring our expenses in line with | our revenue growth | | Interesting, so the cust cuttings aren't about being sustainable | or avoiding loss, but to meet future growth expectations? | | Couldn't they just have like sustained a break even point until | economy recovers? | SeriousM wrote: | Mark's statement has a fineprint at the end about future | uncertainty and "forward-looking" statements. I guess that's the | new way to state your point and at the same time change the | meaning of it in the fineprint. | ericpauley wrote: | This is very standard (and legally necessary) boilerplate in | any public statement. | itissid wrote: | From the immigration H1b PoV looks of it a few months of | severance and then there is 60 days when the clock starts ticking | to find a job. Not bad. | | From what I understand the people where the WARN act is active | they have to give atleast 60 day notice in case of mass | layoffs(this is different from the 60 day grace period for H1bs | to transfer status). | ScriptCrash wrote: | Wonder if "day in the life as a 23 year old product manager at | Meta" still works there... | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-09 23:01 UTC)