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Meta and Google are cutting staff

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Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#361

Post by Tronno »

est31 wrote: post #331
kibwen wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm constantly amazed at how stupid supposed smart people can be when it comes to applying metrics to an organization made up of humans. Intelligence isn't a spectrum, it's an infinite-dimensional space. Someone can be smart on one axis and a dunce on infinity-minus-one other axes. Every genius ever born was almost certainly mediocre at nearly everything outside their expertise.

I wouldn't be so sure about your claim, there were plenty of universal geniuses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath And even today such people exist. Encountering them is often quite an experience. Seeing them being better than you at almost everything is on one hand really nice, on the other hand it makes you wonder what you did wrong. Such folks are usually quite rare though, 1 in a thousand types of people. Bu…

I find your statements hard to accept at face value. Does a "polymath" have infinite time to develop excellence in every conceivable discipline? How good was Benjamin Franklin at, say, composing sonatas?

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#362

Post by systemvoltage »

DangitBobby wrote: post #360
systemvoltage wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work at a Fortune 50 company and found stack ranking...kinda fair. I used to be a high performer, made real ROI impacts, helped others and had a strong sense of initiative. I'd come out with a better raise, stock options and had opportunities to take on more responsibility. It was more honest and straightforward than what silicon valley and Big Tech pretends to do. It is all ranking in some ways. Everything…

I dunno, I don't think it's helpful to identify your worst performers (or label them as "bottom 15%") unless they aren't meeting the needs of the position and need to be let go. Someone has to be the worst, and it's really not okay to arbitrarily make 15% of people's lives hell. Again, if they need to go, they need to go, but I really fucking doubt at any given time 15% of an organization is actually bad enough to wa…

> I don't think it's helpful to identify your worst performers (or label them as "bottom 15%")

I didn't say that and I didn't imply that. Anyways, rewarding (positive reinforcement) is mutually exclusive to punishment (negative reinforcement). Rewarding should be encouraged, otherwise, I have zero motivation to do better. There are many other companies that would value me more and I would not stay there.

Extreme meritocracy is idealistic, and I understand that cannot be achieved easily and there is always politics/networking that plays a role. But it does exist and I've been a beneficiary of it.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#363

Post by acalmon »

Tronno wrote: post #361
est31 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be so sure about your claim, there were plenty of universal geniuses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath And even today such people exist. Encountering them is often quite an experience. Seeing them being better than you at almost everything is on one hand really nice, on the other hand it makes you wonder what you did wrong. Such folks are usually quite rare though, 1 in a thousand types of people. Bu…

I find your statements hard to accept at face value. Does a "polymath" have infinite time to develop excellence in every conceivable discipline? How good was Benjamin Franklin at, say, composing sonatas?

I’m not sure if you are being ironic, but Benjamin Franklin was a pretty good composer: https://iml.esm.rochester.edu/polyphonic-archive/article/ben...

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#364

Post by ouid »

function_seven wrote: post #297
cletus wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse than that. Not only is it graded on a curve but to prevent ratings inflation there are quotas for each ratings bucket. Many deny this, even when presented with concrete proof that such quotas exist (but were called "performance targets"). This itself would be fine except that negative ratings have a target percentage of ~10%. This includes regrettable losses and ratings below Meets All Expectations. Such t…

I'm constantly amazed at how stupid supposed smart people can be when it comes to applying metrics to an organization made up of humans. Stack ranking and related schemes are so obviously going to be gamed, will definitely measure something other than the nominal thing, and will gum up the works. It's one thing to have a Hunger-Games-style hiring process. Bad as that is, there's an expectation that once you've passed…

In what fucking universe has any business major ever passed as smart?

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#365

Post by rtev »

stevejobs69 wrote: post #272
alchemooly wrote: post #211

I've noticed news articles saying that Meta have been cutting back on support staff, like cleaners and custodial roles. To me, these are the wrong people to be cutting. The people who clean Meta are not the reason why Meta is hemorrhaging money. I'm sure they actually do their jobs very well. They should fire the people who are actually causing the problems. Everyone stopped using facebook because they are uncomforta…

>Everyone stopped using facebook because they are uncomfortable using a giant, ad serving, spy machine. Do you really believe this? How does TikTok fit into this vision of the world that you have constructed? I agree with your premise but it seems like you have made a connection between two unrelated things: 1. People are less interested in Facebook 2. Facebook is a giant, ad serving, spy machine These two can co-exi…

TikTok is happy, Facebook optimized for outrage and conflict.

When you only get shown stuff that pisses you off, you’ll get some short-term high engagement at the cost of enjoyment. Ultimately, that gave the strong impression that Facebook is Thanksgiving with your racist uncle, so young people dropped out.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#367

Post by cwalv »

seibelj wrote: post #158
game_the0ry wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They have much better insight than the rosy numbers put forth in their quarterly earnings. I think they are sensing rough waves ahead.

Even if the economy overall chops along with small (but positive) real GDP growth, persistently high (relative to the last decade) interest rates are devastating to growth stock valuations

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#368

Post by jasongi »

johncessna wrote: post #99

This seems at odds with the great resignation. Was that actually a thing? If so, do folks think it was encouraged by companies who saw that the great freeze and now great rif were coming?

Great resignation was people on low(er) wages and/or were treated poorly, moving up (or out) in a tight labour market.

I don’t think it applies to FAANG.

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#369

Post by cwalv »

baq wrote: post #77
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…

Growth slowing = repricing from growth basket to value basket = 70% stock price cut

It doesn't even have to be slowing growth: it can just be slower relative to interest rates

Re: Meta and Google are cutting staff

#370

Post by drozycki »

djohnston wrote: post #345
olliej wrote: post #56

The 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.

What sort of regulations could exist around the frequency or size of a company's layoffs?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraini...

Looks like Google's limit would be 499 laid off per office. I wonder if "Remote" counts as one office location or not, and what timeframe is used to aggregate layoff events for purposes of compliance with this law. Could Google lay off 499 workers in separate layoffs happening weekly or daily?

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