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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

#351

Post by Yizahi »

_hardwaregeek wrote: post #170

As a current student, I'm actually surprised by this. Maybe I just hang out with evil people, but I don't get the impression most young programmers care that much about ethics. Or they claim they do, but then the 6 figure salary, cushy benefits and signing bonus wins them over. Perhaps there's other reasons? I do joke with my friend who works at Bloomberg that the "evil" finance view has now flipped completely. Bloom…

In my average size telecom company almost nobody cares about privacy, at least it seems so any time I mention anything related or link some article in the chat. Or at least they don't see an issue there. (same with equality problems, but that's different topic) It seems programmers are just an average sample of population.

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

#352

Post by quantumsequoia »

holoduke wrote: post #322

I believe (strong personal assumption) that this is something not only for Facebook, but also for Google and Apple. Back 3 years ago, a lot of people from my network had dreams to work for Google or Facebook . Today it's no longer the case. They demand a company who is serious about things like privacy, environment. Things like career possibilities are still important, but so many companies these days offer similar w…

Nearly every criticism of Google also applies to Microsoft. Google considered a censored search engine in China. Microsoft actually has one. Google had a contract with the military but didn't renew it. Microsoft actively has one. Microsoft products also collect large amounts of data on you, and provide less privacy than Google

I can't imagine anyone who no longer wants to work at Google wanting to work at Microsoft

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

#353

Post by quantumsequoia »

pat2man wrote: post #323
holoduke wrote: post #322

I believe (strong personal assumption) that this is something not only for Facebook, but also for Google and Apple. Back 3 years ago, a lot of people from my network had dreams to work for Google or Facebook . Today it's no longer the case. They demand a company who is serious about things like privacy, environment. Things like career possibilities are still important, but so many companies these days offer similar w…

Isn't Apple serious about privacy and the environment?

Privacy, maybe. Environment? They make their phones in Chinese factories with suicide nets

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

#354

Post by quantumsequoia »

ppeetteerr wrote: post #175
bognition wrote: post #5

Honestly I think its more than just that, Facebook is no longer the cool start up building the world's favorite website. They're a multi-national advertising mega corp, and TBH most people just don't want to work there.

Totally agree. There are dozens of companies that aggregate user information (Google amongst them). Like @bognition said, FB lost its cool a while ago.

Is collecting user information itself considered unethical? Isn't the unethical part abusing sharing of that information?

No one rallies against the US Census as unethical

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

#355

Post by quantumsequoia »

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…

The whole Facebook sells data thing is something I see said a lot, but haven't seen anything show. Is there any evidence of this?

Wouldn't selling data be detrimental to their business model of being the golden goose for showing ads to people interested in your product? If people get user data, they can better target people themselves rather than paying Facebook to do it

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

#356

Post by quantumsequoia »

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.

They're definitely more "tainted" than those brands. I'd say public perception of ethics in tech brands, from most to least ethical, is:

Apple Microsoft Google Amazon Facebook

(whether or not those perceptions are well founded is another matter)

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

#359

Post by freetime2 »

adjkant wrote: post #314
tobtoh wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Apple, Google, Microsoft aren't the cool start-ups either and they are mega-corps, yet people still want to work there. So I don't believe that line of reasoning holds up.

In terms of cool tech, Apple/Google absolutely are a cut above Facebook now in my experience. Microsoft used to be below, now they rose as they embraced more open source and modern tech, I'd probably put Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon even in the cool category these days while Facebook was stereotypically above Microsoft before. Amazon, depends who you ask for a definition of "cool" from more so.

I would wager that at all of these companies, how “cool” your job is depends heavily on your specific team and role. I’m sure there are thousands of people with very uncool jobs at Google, and thousands of people with very cool jobs at FB. Comparing two companies of that size and saying one is cooler than the other is probably an oversimplification.

That being said, I share your perception that Google and Apple are cooler than FB. :)

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

#360

Post by freetime2 »

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?

It’s not easy to build an app at the scale of FB. If I saw FB experience on a candidate’s resume, I would view that as a positive.
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