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Facebook has struggled to hire talent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal

cnbc.com

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Re: Facebook has struggled to hire talent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal

#71

Post by Balgair »

jfasi wrote: post #38

I just spent three months hiring in NYC, and now that I think about it, I haven't seen a single person mention they were considering counteroffers from Facebook. For context, Facebook and Google are the two largest tech companies with a significant NYC presence. It's telling that a substantial portion of our candidates admitted to considering competing offers from Google, but literally no one was considering Facebook…

There is also an issue with the 'evaporative' effect. If no one who works there is seen as 'ethical', then you'd expect the people that do work there to be unethical/dubious. So, trying to get a promotion is then more cut-throat, the lunch crew has a few more 'jerks', the HR is a bit more biting, etc. Your hackels get raised and you are more suspicious of the motivations (however begnin) of others. Better to just not get involved.

Re: Facebook has struggled to hire talent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal

#72

Post by neves »

allthecybers wrote: post #9

This is not a surprising headline. If you have values about privacy, decency, civil discourse, honesty or integrity you wouldn’t want to work there. Also, if you feel the company was collusive or willingly complicit in the dissemination of fake news and Russian propaganda efforts during our elections, it’d be a big fat “no” to working there. And it’s not just our democracy that is undermined by FB. There’s a litany o…

Don't forget about WhatsApp. It was the main channel of dissemination of fake news in Brazilian Election. Now we have a global warning denier in the presidency and Amazon deforestation is reaching record levels.

Sure there isn't any company in the FAANG that is an altruistic enterprise, but to be only pure evil one is Facebook.

What really impresses me is that there's still a lot of talented people working there.

Re: Facebook has struggled to hire talent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal

#73

Post by acdha »

seisvelas wrote: post #67
gambler wrote: post #44

>Facebook candidates are asking much tougher questions about the company’s approach to privacy, according to multiple former recruiters. This narrative is highly suspicious. Zukerberg openly and repeatedly said that he doesn't care about anyone's privacy for well over a decade [1]. The whole company is built around collecting and selling private information. Why would people who care about privacy interview with Face…

Perhaps developers now value privacy more on average than they did back then.

Yeah, I think it's really common to downplay this as an “everyone knows” situation but there seemed to be a sea-change where it went from “maybe people see more spam than they used to” to “major world events are impacted”.

Re: Facebook has struggled to hire talent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal

#74

Post by silversconfused »

Talanes wrote: post #57
silversconfused wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but you haven't heard of them yet.

They're not "the cool startup building the world's favorite website" until we've heard of them.

My good dude, once you've heard of them, they are not cool anymore. Cool is exclusive. Cool is mysterious. Cool doesn't care what is popular. When cool goes mainstream, it's not cool anymore! The trendsetters have already moved on.

Re: Facebook has struggled to hire talent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal

#75

Post by varelse »

warp_factor wrote: post #41

The general feel I get from most of my engineer friends is that Facebook's product is definitely not inspiring and doesn't "make the world a better place" (whatever that means). But the consensus is that given the right amount of money, they would all accept an offer from them. And Facebook is known to pay very well.

AMZN<FB<GOOG<Wall Street in my experience for AI skills. #OneDatapoint

Re: Facebook has struggled to hire talent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal

#77

Post by tanilama »

jfasi wrote: post #38

I just spent three months hiring in NYC, and now that I think about it, I haven't seen a single person mention they were considering counteroffers from Facebook. For context, Facebook and Google are the two largest tech companies with a significant NYC presence. It's telling that a substantial portion of our candidates admitted to considering competing offers from Google, but literally no one was considering Facebook…

It is not only ethnical.

With SO much negative press, I feel that Facebook had lost its mission among wider public. If it is net bad for the society, even just the perception of it, it is hard to hire someone who shared that vision with you, only mercenaries.

Good people are weird, though. They work for money, like everyone else, but not just money.

Re: Facebook has struggled to hire talent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal

#78

Post by imglorp »

neves wrote: post #72
allthecybers wrote: post #9

This is not a surprising headline. If you have values about privacy, decency, civil discourse, honesty or integrity you wouldn’t want to work there. Also, if you feel the company was collusive or willingly complicit in the dissemination of fake news and Russian propaganda efforts during our elections, it’d be a big fat “no” to working there. And it’s not just our democracy that is undermined by FB. There’s a litany o…

Don't forget about WhatsApp. It was the main channel of dissemination of fake news in Brazilian Election. Now we have a global warning denier in the presidency and Amazon deforestation is reaching record levels. Sure there isn't any company in the FAANG that is an altruistic enterprise, but to be only pure evil one is Facebook. What really impresses me is that there's still a lot of talented people working there.

I asked one, who pointed out he'd like to make change from within rather than blog about them being evil from the outside.

I don't know which way is right.

Re: Facebook has struggled to hire talent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal

#79

Post by jeromegv »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #33
5trokerac3 wrote: post #27

Facebook's brand is tainted enough now that smart engineers don't want any of the bleedover into their personal brand that would come from working there. How many engineers, in hiring positions, do you know that have a positive opinion of FB?

Ok but how many engineers use React, yarn, or graphql? Facebook is still leading the way in front end development and it’s still a net positive to have that name on your resume. Their brand isn’t any more tainted than Google, Microsoft, or Amazon.

There's still much more chances that you will end up working on some Ad-Tech at Facebook and not cutting edge open-source development. As for the brand not being any more tainted than the other tech giants, I think the article shows the exact opposite

Re: Facebook has struggled to hire talent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal

#80

Post by Pils »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21
esoterica wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no career hit associated with Facebook. That’s just ludicrous wishful thinking. People love to complain about Goldman Sachs too, but that still looks good on a resume.

> There is no career hit associated with Facebook Having witnessed it personally, yes there is. It's not evenly distributed. And if you do something amazing later on, people will look past it. But it's there in a way it isn't for e.g. Apple or Google or Amazon. > People love to complain about Goldman Sachs too, but that still looks good on a resume Goldman is universally respected within finance. Facebook is not univ…

Is there a scenario similar to Facebook's in finance, right now or historically?
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