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Facebook has struggled to hire talent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal

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

#92

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?

I know lots of engineers, in hiring positions, that have a positive opinion of FB. They still do great engineering and someone working there will learn a lot and take those skills to their next job.

There are engineers who were already working at Facebook when all the negative press started piling up.

Then there are the engineers who went to work for them in spite of that bad press.

Given the revelations that have come to light, that is a distinction worth considering.

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

#93
post #72

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.

Any communication platform that is easy to use and easy to reach people on, and will therefore be popular, is great channel of dissemination of fake news. Well, guess what, it is also a great channel for communicating nonfake news, and talking to people that matter to you, and sharing your interests with likeminded people, and...

Blaming the platform for carrying fake news seems disingenuous. Fake news have been spreading over any available channels ever since humans learned to talk and figured out that they can tell lies to each other. Blame people for believing most of anything they're told.

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

#94
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's telling that a substantial portion of our candidates admitted to considering competing offers from Google, but literally no one was considering Facebook." intersting anecdote. google is a bigger concern for privacy and personal liberty, yet jobseekers are shunning facebook because of the more wide-ranging negative press.

Google has your data and uses it for themselves. Facebook has your data and gives it (or leaks it) to anyone with money.

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

#95
post #78
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

FB's core business model is the root problem. "Working from within" is vain, naive, and futile; only Zuckerberg has the power to change the business model, and we all know thats not happening.

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

#96

As much as everyone wants to believe this is because all the applicants are suddenly taking strong ethical stances, I bet it has more to do with Facebook simply not being considering cool or exciting anymore.

Agreed. I would argue that Facebook is not considered cool as a direct result of all the outrage surrounding it.

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

#97

As much as everyone wants to believe this is because all the applicants are suddenly taking strong ethical stances, I bet it has more to do with Facebook simply not being considering cool or exciting anymore.

Yeah, it's seen as the platform your parents (or worse, grandparents) use. Pretty much a step above Next Door. Why would you want to work for that over some of the other companies out there?

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

#98
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that people who care about privacy could possibly affect what Facebook does by working there.

Why not? Tech firms work collaboratively and even new employees participate in (some) decision-making.

Making a decision that limits the growth of the core product means that you are a negatively impacting revenue... IE, career suicide. This isn't a government (ideally) trying to prevent conflict and unrest, this is just a company making money.

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

#99
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It's telling that a substantial portion of our candidates admitted to considering competing offers from Google, but literally no one was considering Facebook." intersting anecdote. google is a bigger concern for privacy and personal liberty, yet jobseekers are shunning facebook because of the more wide-ranging negative press.

If you have time, can you elaborate why you believe Google is a larger threat to personal liberty and privacy?

I too was curious of this balance weighting. FB slurps in all of the data that users voluntarily post. Google just learns things through inference about users whereas FB is getting data posted directly by the user. Seems to me that FB is able to be way more invasive.

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

#100
post #75

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

You seem to be lost. Twitter is down the hall, second door on the left.
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