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Meta slashes hiring plans, girds for 'fierce' headwinds

reuters.com

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Re: Meta slashes hiring plans, girds for 'fierce' headwinds

#151

Post by SilverBirch »

What I find interesting so far about these hiring freezes & layoffs is that at the moment it's been quite diffuse. All the announcements have been about how the companies will shrink head count and costs etc. But so far there haven't really been the focused sweeping announcements you would expect.

When a company really hits hard times you expect them to be much more deliberate about how they cut, they start making decisions about which businesses do they really want to be in and how much do they want to spend. Facebook is a great example of this. You take a look at the business and say "What's the core business" it's ad-supported social media, you look at the focus and spend and it's this weird hardware platform that's a big bet and probably a long way off and not really connected to the core business. Facebook has completely lost focus on its core business. So this focus on efficiency seems just silly. A lot of these cuts seem entirely driven by some meme about the economy rather than actual real market pressure. When real headwinds start to hit, the cutting is going to be far more about focus and direction than on this vague idea of being lean. It doesn't matter how lean you are while designing a headset, because you're running a social media site.

Re: Meta slashes hiring plans, girds for 'fierce' headwinds

#152

Post by gabaix »

boredtofears wrote: post #27
d--b wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this read “Let’s ditch those ethical people who get in the way of profit.”? Yes FB is not for me. Not as a worker, not as a customer.

Imagine how bleak it must be to be an average SWE at facebook. Sure, you get paid a ton of money, but now they are going to "turn up the heat" on you to pump glorified CRUD message board features faster. (yes, I know there are probably lots of intellectually interesting jobs at Meta, but the overall purpose and mission just isn't exactly inspiring)

Add to this the devastating effects that they had on human minds, in particular on teenagers.

When money is good, most people turn a blind eye. Stop the music and people will think twice.

Re: Meta slashes hiring plans, girds for 'fierce' headwinds

#153

Post by JKCalhoun »

wiz21c wrote: post #35
padolsey wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Performance Summary Cycle. From experience, the psc culture within fb/meta is intense, internally competitive (even within teams) and heavily focuses on quantifiable gains (e.g. often tech-debt or ethical-minded features are forgone for engagement metric increases ... via any means). It's not nice unless you're a very specific type of person.

If Zuckerberg finds it OK to talk like that to its employees, then it means the general culture there must be able to hear him. So you're right, very specific type of person. But I wonder : how would you describe that type ? the type "if I'm in Meta it's because I'm the best of the best and I want to continue to prove I'm the best of the best, at any cost" ?

> But I wonder : how would you describe that type ?

At first blush, someone that thinks they can game that kind of system.

So: unlock a bunch of achievements (I don't care about tech debt do u?), try to diminish the contributions of coworkers, cash out when you win and then head off to the next company.

Re: Meta slashes hiring plans, girds for 'fierce' headwinds

#154

Post by tinyhouse »

I don't understand why Meta gets so much hate here. I do understand the Facebook/Instagram hate. The only good thing left on Facebook is the groups. But as a tech crowd we should be more appreciative seeing a huge tech company risking everything in order to innovate in an exciting space such as VR. Don't get me wrong, I think the whole Metaverse story the way Zuck's tells it is pretty stupid, but there are many VR use cases I'm very excited about. A different CEO would just try to keep milking the Facebook/Instagram cow. But Zuck is much more bold.

Now back to the post. The problem is that Meta is one of the highest paying companies. But being such a big company with far than optimal hiring process, you get a lot of bad apples in (or even good apples that just don't fit in), which leads to being inefficient and wasteful. You end up with many people making a killing but who are "resting and vesting" or even worse, having negative impact. They don't have an incentive to leave cause no one is going to pay them as much or more.

Re: Meta slashes hiring plans, girds for 'fierce' headwinds

#155

Post by psyc »

dgs_sgd wrote: post #7

My roommate works at Meta and from how he describes the culture to me it seems quite intense and competitive already. I can't imagine what "turning up the heat" even more would imply.

When I was there (Oculus) I would not have survived 2 weeks if I had not worked > 8 hours and gone in most weekends. I was on a small team whose pace was simply much faster than any job I've ever had. And everyone seemed to have had a more impressive career than I. Perhaps I'm who Mark is talking about! Microsoft was much more my speed.

Re: Meta slashes hiring plans, girds for 'fierce' headwinds

#156

Post by oblio »

WJW wrote: post #140
mgh2 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is blaming the economy and employees, when in fact the product itself is dying. Lots of CEOs with bad businesses will play this card to avoid responsibility...

> there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn't be here Would be interesting to see whether he still considers himself essential for the future of Meta.

How many founders of successful companies willingly stepped out? 1%? 0.01%? :-)

Re: Meta slashes hiring plans, girds for 'fierce' headwinds

#157

Post by elforce002 »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #77
intodameta wrote: post #30

This is going to get super ugly over there. Sheryl Sandberg leaving was a part of this, the entire “oh, we have this pending investigation into you…no big deal” is the corporate equivalent of the claws coming out just a little bit to tell you that if you don’t quit, the claws will come out all the way. She was expensive and probably not fully engaged and bought in with this random direction change into Metaverse, a b…

Facebook the brand isn't just poison, it's an pandemic killer virus on any other markets. Instagram will be a bad joke soon, worse than facebook. Will anyone want their most superficial and narcissitic period of their lives remembered? Nope, it'll get chucked out when their audience grows up. Which is right about..... now. Metaverse? Who would want Zuckerberg and his sociopathy associated with a virtual world? Other…

Facebook as a platform is for old people. Gen Z is on TikTok and Snap. Late millennials (28-36) are on Instagram and moving to TikTok.

Facebook still has relevance outside the US but TikTok is gaining momentum. The reality is that the fb era is starting to sunset.

IG is becoming the Frankenstein Monster, copying features from other platforms trying to stay relevant.

Re: Meta slashes hiring plans, girds for 'fierce' headwinds

#158

Post by JKCalhoun »

gedy wrote: post #6
achow wrote: post #2

Interesting quote from CEO in an all hands directly to employees. I don't want to be at Meta right now.. .."turning up the heat" on performance management to weed out staffers unable to meet more aggressive goals. "Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn't be here," Zuckerberg said. "Part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and just kind of turni…

I'm not a Meta-hater, but the tone of this is always destructive when it comes up. It's basically soft layoffs that try and paint those leaving/pushed out as "unmotivated" or "can't keep up with the rest of us". I wish companies would be more honest that they aren't doing well, over hired, etc instead. I kinda get mgmt types thinking this will keep remaining feeling motivated, safe, etc. but it's very phoney to a lot…

> I kinda get mgmt types thinking this will keep remaining feeling motivated, safe, etc.

That seems completely counterintuitive to me. Seeing your co-worker tip off the end of the plank doesn't make me feel safe as we are all inching closer to the end of it.

Though it would motivate me to look for a job elsewhere.

Re: Meta slashes hiring plans, girds for 'fierce' headwinds

#159

Post by coldcode »

Johnny555 wrote: post #52

On the bright side, the Facebook recruiters have stopped bugging me.

For years I got those emails all the time. If I had printed them out they would have made great fire starters. I could not ever imagine working for FB even though they paid a lot at the time.

Re: Meta slashes hiring plans, girds for 'fierce' headwinds

#160

Post by elforce002 »

anewpersonality wrote: post #119

Instagram is basically Facebook at this point.

It's worse than that. Ig is their Frankenstein Monster. Facebook is for old people (literally) since gen Z is all over TikTok and Snapchat (to a certain extent).

The fb era is starting to sunset.

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