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Meta and Google are cutting staff

wsj.com

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Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#191

Post by shostack »

game_the0ry wrote: post #60
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is there data suggesting comp bands are reducing as a result of the hiring climate? Cost of living is still through the roof, so while companies should pay based on value, there will presumably still be pressure based on that.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#192

Post by strulovich »

marcosdumay wrote: post #160
acchow wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They will refute at all cost that this is stack ranking Graded in the context of peers’ performance does not imply that they sort employees by performance.

Interesting. I can't find a way to read "graded in the context of peers" that doesn't parse into exactly the same concept as "sort employees by performance". AFAIK, it's not something you can interpret as, those are literally synonyms. But well, stack ranking is not only about sorting (the name is a lie), it's about placing people in fixed sized cohorts. The real question is if there is a limitation on the number of…

The cohorts at Meta are not fixed size (at least not at the team level).

You do get to see the average size of cohorts, and you will need to explain why your team doesn’t meet them - for example if the entire team project is going exceedingly well, or the team is really made out if a lot of extraordinarily talented people - then you can argue why you have more than the average rate of excellent rankings.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#193

Post by colinmhayes »

game_the0ry wrote: post #15

I 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 and Meta doubled head count during covid. They probably just realize they don't have the ability to productively manage that many people/the unique opportunities covid presented are gone, so they're trying to get back to a more manageable size.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#194

Post by strulovich »

deelowe wrote: post #166
sequoia wrote: post #165

Facebook and google have "required some employees to apply for new jobs if they wish to remain at the company." I have to say this is a sort of hilarious newspeak framing of layoffs. "We're not laying you off, you just need to apply and get accepted for a job or else you're terminated." OK, so I was a job-haver, now I'm a job-seeker... but at least I haven't been laid off!

Assumption being, if you can't pass interviews with another team, you're not good enough to stay. That only works for large campuses and of course, getting another role is more indicative of your networking abilities than skillset and experience.

Meta doesn’t do interviews when passing between teams though (at least not in the common case).

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#195

Post by Firmwarrior »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #106
nafix wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like it. I really dislike working with under-performers and people who just refuse to do due diligence on their end. I dislike working with people who always want you to come over to their frame of mind rather than trying to get into yours or meet in the middle. I saw a ton of people coasting during Covid. People need to get negative feedback when they deserve it.

This is under the presumption that most/all of the people being let go are actually low performers, and that leadership is able to correctly identify them. The same leadership that thought those people met the caliber for working there in the first place. I won't deny that there's low performers at any organization, but this is giving the people making the cuts too much credit imo. Double-digit cuts say more about le…

Microsoft ruthlessly fired tons of "low performers" for over a decade, which gave them the organizational efficiency they needed to ship such resoundingly successful products as Bing Search, Windows Mobile, and Windows 8

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#196

Post by VirusNewbie »

treis wrote: post #11
tempsy wrote: post #2

This will be the trend among most tech companies. Very clear the market has now negatively reacted to high operating expenses that largely stem from excessive headcount. Most companies will likely not reduce pay if they can help it to maintain competitiveness, but if you’re a bottom or middle performer or on a non-revenue generating team suddenly your job security even at “safe” companies like Google is at risk.

>Very clear the market has now negatively reacted to high operating expenses that largely stem from excessive headcount. Reducing staff by ~10% or whatever after doubling it in the last couple years isn't exactly a strong signal of anything.

The article says its 50 people at Google who are affected. And they have a chance to apply to other teams.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#197

Post by thatfunkymunki »

strulovich wrote: post #194
deelowe wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assumption being, if you can't pass interviews with another team, you're not good enough to stay. That only works for large campuses and of course, getting another role is more indicative of your networking abilities than skillset and experience.

Meta doesn’t do interviews when passing between teams though (at least not in the common case).

false, i had to interview again during a layoff in 2020 (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/technology/facebook-secur...)

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#198

Post by joshuamorton »

nightpool wrote: post #123
Infinitesimus wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does sorting by performance look like to you? The curve determines rating and compensation, influences promotion decisions, projects people get to work on and what opportunities come their way. The seems like a sort to me given that budget and project opportunities are fixed in many places.

The key component of stack ranking / sorting by performance is that there's no absolute measure of your contribution, only a relative measure by which you have to outcompete everyone else in your team/department. If you fire your lowest 15% of engineers—no matter how good they are on an absolute level—that's a stack ranking system. It's a horrifying Red Queen's Race that punishes high-quality teams. I'm not necessari…

The other key component of stack ranking was that it's on a per team basis.

A team of 20 people may have no low performers. An org of 400 probably has a couple, at some point the law of large numbers does really start to apply, and you're no longer in competition with the people you're working with on the daily.

If one member of your two-pizza team is going to get fired each year, it makes sense to throw someone under the bus on the reg. If one member of your 100 person org is going to get fired each year, that strategy doesn't make sense.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#199

Post by spacemadness »

rosywoozlechan wrote: post #95
karmasimida wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right, I wasn't suggesting fake friendliness, just like something better than making generalizations that bring up the spector of hidden bad people working at the company and nobody knows whose head is going to roll. It creates uncertainty, fear and just general demoralization in the ranks if you ask me.

Your take is entirely reasonable. The lack of empathy often comes from the well off who have never had to struggle and can’t conceptualize what that even means.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#200

Post by [deleted] »

colinmhayes wrote: post #193
game_the0ry wrote: post #15

I 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 and Meta doubled head count during covid. They probably just realize they don't have the ability to productively manage that many people/the unique opportunities covid presented are gone, so they're trying to get back to a more manageable size.

[deleted]
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