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Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

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Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#61
> “I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now..” Zuckerberg said.

Zuck is blaming the economy, but Meta's real problem is that Apple tightened iOS privacy. Meta had built a business on tracking people, and when iOS tightened privacy, Meta could not target ads as effectively as before.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#62
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Their main product sucks and their Boomer user base is literally dying. The acquisitions are keeping them in the game, but Insta has intense competition from TikTok and Snap and YouTube. They don’t have an unsinkable critical product that everyone uses and will continue to use through good and bad times, like search or mail.

Snapchat is walking dead fwiw.

TikTok is strong, but realistically will be banned across the west next couple years b/c of security problems.

You might hate Instagram, and that's very understandable, but it's going to be fine.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#63
post #7
post #5

Tech is reflexive. Since most tech/saas companies sell/support other saas companies, they all go down. Think about all the startups who rely on AWS, Apple computers, and Facebook ads. What happens when they all die? The tech bull run is over, and we'll find out where the bodies lie soon.

This is really hyperbolic. Facebook is not even closely comparable to those. Additionally, there's no market indication that won't be a need for services like AWS or hardware provided by Apple. It's really weird how many people seem to _want_ the tech industry to just wither and die. It's unlikely and unrealistic. There may be a sharp correction, but it's unrealistic to think that the behemoths with a moat are going…

AWS is healthy. Apple is effectively immortal, but will slowly commoditize (10+ yrs) from lack of innovation.

Meta/Goog are (eng staff wise) oversized for their output. Both of their leaderships aren't leading very well.

Despite the hype and capabilities offered, none of the big players have find ways to use their AI assets. That's a poor indicator of their future. You can almost smell the disruption coming..

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#64

They should only keep the engineers that remember how to solve leetcode hard problems /s

Have you ever interviewed with Facebook/Meta? They don't do leetcode problems. Say what you want about them as a company, but I've done quite a few interviews in my career and their process was one of my favorites.

I had a recruiter reach out to me about some ML positions there earlier this year, and I was sort of interested in it for a bit. They have an applicant portal where they literally have you practice leetcode problems, and are pretty open that you're going to be asked those kinds of questions in the interview.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#65
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their main product sucks and their Boomer user base is literally dying. The acquisitions are keeping them in the game, but Insta has intense competition from TikTok and Snap and YouTube. They don’t have an unsinkable critical product that everyone uses and will continue to use through good and bad times, like search or mail.

Snapchat is walking dead fwiw. TikTok is strong, but realistically will be banned across the west next couple years b/c of security problems. You might hate Instagram, and that's very understandable, but it's going to be fine.

I used to think this about Snap but then https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social...

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#66
post #61

> “I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now..” Zuckerberg said. Zuck is blaming the economy, but Meta's real problem is that Apple tightened iOS privacy. Meta had built a business on tracking people, and when iOS tightened privacy, Meta could not target ads as effectively as before.

It's definitely a problem, but the economic downturn is a lot more significant. Meta allegedly got around Apple's privacy rules.

I used to work in user tracking, and it's very easy to track people down to near-unique from several metrics.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#67

They should only keep the engineers that remember how to solve leetcode hard problems /s

Have you ever interviewed with Facebook/Meta? They don't do leetcode problems. Say what you want about them as a company, but I've done quite a few interviews in my career and their process was one of my favorites.

I had to navigate a dynamic maze involving teleports and boulders to show my leet graphing abilities to join as a test engineer :) Suffice to say I failed. I build test frameworks, manage test network infrastructure, and deploy CI/CD pipelines (and think I'm pretty good at it). I just really suck at leetcode.

Edit: In fact thinking back, they even sent me tips on how to improve my leetcode skills in preparation for the interview! The whole process was completely guided by it.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#68
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their main product sucks and their Boomer user base is literally dying. The acquisitions are keeping them in the game, but Insta has intense competition from TikTok and Snap and YouTube. They don’t have an unsinkable critical product that everyone uses and will continue to use through good and bad times, like search or mail.

Snapchat is walking dead fwiw. TikTok is strong, but realistically will be banned across the west next couple years b/c of security problems. You might hate Instagram, and that's very understandable, but it's going to be fine.

TikTok being banned would cause immense backlash with the public. Odds are higher it will get replaced before a ban takes place, and Insta isn't exactly stepping up.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#69
post #61

> “I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now..” Zuckerberg said. Zuck is blaming the economy, but Meta's real problem is that Apple tightened iOS privacy. Meta had built a business on tracking people, and when iOS tightened privacy, Meta could not target ads as effectively as before.

Apple tightening privacy while TikTok is eating their lunch... Not to mention the Metaverse is/was a giant distraction.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#70
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have interviewed with them more than a single time, and this is simply not true.

Facebook is notorious for using leetcode problems verbatim. Your singular experience does not invalidate that fact.

This has been my experience as well, same for Amazon.

I didn't practice that much since I hate wasting time on useless tasks, and the interviewer literally told me to just leetcode and read the interview book. I asked him a bunch of web questions and he had no fucking clue, all he did was leetcode and interview every year.

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