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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

#201

Post by thrown321 »

tinyhouse wrote: post #161
SilverBirch wrote: post #151

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 de…

I disagree. They didn't lose focus. Their new focus is VR. They anticipate it's going to be much bigger growth engine for them in the next decades, while the current core business is slowing down. Maybe their mistake is that they are too aggressive with the VR spending. There are many examples of companies that had a great core business that was gradually slowing down and new companies came and ate their lunch. Meta…

Mark indicated that WhatsApp was next for growth/monetization and then VR, when he last appeared on CNBC's Mad Money.

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

#202

Post by Planktonne »

> Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here

If a company has both

1) A lot of dead wood

2) No better strategy to deal with it than 'turning up the heat'

Then this suggests a profound failure of management and leadership. I'd start cutting the dead wood there.

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

#204

Post by s17n »

Planktonne wrote: post #202

> Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here If a company has both 1) A lot of dead wood 2) No better strategy to deal with it than 'turning up the heat' Then this suggests a profound failure of management and leadership. I'd start cutting the dead wood there.

Every sufficiently large company has a lot of dead wood, and nobody has yet devised a better strategy than 'turning up the heat'.

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

#205

Post by 31835843 »

People who work at FAANG calibre companies are professionals, perfectly capable of finding new positions that suit their skills and level of commitment. I think it’s infantilizing to take the CEO’s comments and imply that those employees are being mistreated.

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

#206

Post by halfmatthalfcat »

cs137 wrote: post #125
npteljes wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and just kind of turning up the heat a little bit, is that I think some of you might decide that this place isn't for you, and that self-selection is OK with me," he said. This, to me, sounds like he's pressuring people to leave, so that they don't have to fire them, which would involve severance.

Generally, people who get PIP'd don't get severance, even if fired. The real purpose of the PIP process is to grind people down so they make mistakes, costing them what could otherwise be beautiful lawsuits [1], or just stop showing up (which I guess would fall under quitting, since they end up firing themselves, at least bureaucratically speaking). ---- [1] This is surprisingly easy to do in the US. If you post abou…

That may be for more cold blooded companies but most PIPs I've witnessed have gotten severance and actually good packages to boot.

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

#207

Post by justinbaker84 »

Planktonne wrote: post #202

> Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here If a company has both 1) A lot of dead wood 2) No better strategy to deal with it than 'turning up the heat' Then this suggests a profound failure of management and leadership. I'd start cutting the dead wood there.

100% Agree.

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

#209

Post by refurb »

Planktonne wrote: post #202

> Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here If a company has both 1) A lot of dead wood 2) No better strategy to deal with it than 'turning up the heat' Then this suggests a profound failure of management and leadership. I'd start cutting the dead wood there.

I’m not sure I’d blame management for not having a crystal ball and seeing the market downturn in advance.

I can see them getting fired for not hitting their hiring and spending targets when the company has aggressive expansion goals.

And the idea you can hire thousands of people and exclude all potential deadwood is just fantasy.

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

#210

Post by corrral »

s17n wrote: post #204
Planktonne wrote: post #202

> Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here If a company has both 1) A lot of dead wood 2) No better strategy to deal with it than 'turning up the heat' Then this suggests a profound failure of management and leadership. I'd start cutting the dead wood there.

Every sufficiently large company has a lot of dead wood, and nobody has yet devised a better strategy than 'turning up the heat'.

Does this not have the side effect of also driving away employees with the best alternatives (so, probably your best ones)?
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