It's odd to read about hiring freezes when they're both still actively recruiting.
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Meta and Google are cutting staff
51–60 of 408 posts
Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff
#52Some of these comments mentioned in the article coming from Meta's leadership about there being people who shouldn't probably be there or to get rid of coasters seems so inhumane and demoralizing. What kind of leadership is that? I mean it's understandable that businesses have to cut costs, but have some empathy, and understand how words affect people. Just wow. It's so cynical and depressing.
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Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff
#53I can't read WSJ while at work, but after checking on the financials for both Meta and Alphabet, I do not understand why either would be cutting staff. Both look pretty strong, so I am not sure how cuts are justified or why Zuckerberg has a negative outlook, especially since 2021 was such a great year for both. Do American executives, investors, and start up owners not have the guts for even a moderate stock price dr…
Maybe Meta and Alphabet has gotten to the point where they don't need more people? The return from adding another guy optimizing ads isn't that high when you already have 10 000 people doing it.
Google has 3x more people today than when I worked there, and those people are working on the same products as back then. There must be some point which it no longer makes sense to hire more people.
Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff
#54They're also still recruiting
Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff
#55I can't read WSJ while at work, but after checking on the financials for both Meta and Alphabet, I do not understand why either would be cutting staff. Both look pretty strong, so I am not sure how cuts are justified or why Zuckerberg has a negative outlook, especially since 2021 was such a great year for both. Do American executives, investors, and start up owners not have the guts for even a moderate stock price dr…
Google's profits dropped last quarter, and that is a rare occurrence for them. Metas revenue actually fell last quarter, with profits dropping 35%. IIRC, that's the first revenue drop they have had since going public. This isn't about stock prices, this is about the strength of the underlying business.
Judging by the financials, the underlying business for both is strong, especially relative to many other kinds of businesses. The drop, still, does not look fatal when considering how much growth there was in 2020 and 2021.
Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff
#56The other one I’ve seen seems to be semi-regularly getting rid of like 50 people at a time - like essentially just keeping any big layoffs below the reporting level. I’d assume/hope that whatever regulations are involved count layoffs over a period rather than just how many in a given event - but it would not surprise me if it didn’t.
Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff
#57It's odd to read about hiring freezes when they're both still actively recruiting.
Are they? I did an interview with one of them a few months ago, passed hiring committee, and have been told everything is frozen. The other one just cancelled my interview.
Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff
#58The article highlights that the easiest way for these companies to let go of staff right now is to dissolve entire teams. I've heard from friends that work at these companies that recent hiring freezes have actually made managers more hesitant to fire low performers because anyone they fire can't be replaced and they'd rather have a low performer than no one at all. The team dissolving process seems to sidestep this…
At Meta managers can't really get away with hiding low performers. Your performance review isn't finalized by your manager, but rather the manager submits your review to a calibrating board that tries to ensure fairness and maintain quality standards. They will refute at all cost that this is stack ranking but you are absolutely graded on the curve of the other engineers in your department and level.
Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff
#59Some of these comments mentioned in the article coming from Meta's leadership about there being people who shouldn't probably be there or to get rid of coasters seems so inhumane and demoralizing. What kind of leadership is that? I mean it's understandable that businesses have to cut costs, but have some empathy, and understand how words affect people. Just wow. It's so cynical and depressing.
Empathy is anti-capitalist.
I think the executive getting rid of their usual fake friendly corporate talk, reflecting the degree how bad their bottom line is hurt.
Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
My current theory on this, particularly for Google, is they're just taking advantage of the macroeconomic moment to cut some fat. Slowing growth or outright letting people go is a no-go in times of macroeconomic growth. Big companies, even if not strictly needed, can be opportunistic here and make some cuts they wouldn't be able to in other circumstances.
Yep. The hiring market has shifted from ultra-competitive during the COVID economic boom to being much tighter and more competitive during this economic downturn. You can't hire at Meta and Google scale without collecting some mis-hires and poor performers. When the hiring market is tight you might keep them on longer and try to mentor them up to par, but when the hiring market shifts and there are a lot of great can…
> This is more like cycling out hires that didn't work AND some collateral employees who unfortunately got lumped into those teams and cancelled projects
I see - if they are cycling out the lower performers and hire recently laid off people on the market for a bargain, then that kind of makes sense, assuming they are not in a hiring freeze.