Live data from Hacker News

Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

bloomberg.com

471–480 of 540 posts

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The economy is stabilizing. The economy is in the early phases of the biggest Fed tightening since at least the 1980s. If you know where that will end up, congrats. For the rest of us, it's very much uncharted waters.

> The economy is in the early phases of the biggest Fed tightening since at least the 1980s. But the 2010s through 2020s period is a myth, a figment of cheap money. This money was made cheap to help us get out of the 2007/2008 recession, but the cheap money clearly went on too long. Its warped all of our thinking. We should have been raising rates and paying down the Fed's balance sheet a long, long time ago. To be f…

>Its warped all of our thinking.

Sort of. People who entered the workforce after around 2015 have no idea what is coming. Those of us who entered the workforce in the mid to late 1990s have already seen the movie a couple of times and know exactly what is coming. For those that don't know, the real economic pain typically comes during the 2-4 year period after the recession has technically ended. When you're actually in the recession it doesn't feel like it and people debate whether we really are in one, as they are doing today. It becomes apparent a little later.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Netflix is probably going to the first FAANG company to fold Why would Netflix go out of business? Are they overly burdened by debt?

Much stronger competition in the streaming space. Disney has better content for every family with kids, so they're first choice. Amazon already has people via Prime. How many more are you going to buy? Possibly one, small chance of two? You've got Netflix and all the others scrambling for that last space in the house. Plus they don't seem to be able to make a hit show of the kind that gets subscriptions, just a lot o…

This is interesting. As a parent, we have Netflix, not Dinsey+. See, children love to re-do things over and over, same for tv, my children want to watch wreck it ralph and moana for 100 times.

So, buy one of those "disney classics" bundles and you are good for a long chunk of time. Netflix covers the adults.

That's my feeling at least, I don't like a single adult show from disney.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#473
post #91

> In prior moves to reduce spending, a dual-camera watch the company was building to compete with the Apple Watch was shuttered. loool > Meta is not the only advertising company to be hit by broader economic challenges. interesting they are referenced as advertising company..

who would buy a facebook watch? lol

Right in the name: facebook "watch" -ing you

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#474
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little dated [2018], but still rings true: The average tenure for engineers at many major tech companies is ~3 years. Thus, you'd expect new hires at a rate of 30% annually just to maintain staffing levels. To determine headcount growth you, should look at year-over-year changes in total employee count, not just the number of new hires. TLDR: Meta's new-hire rate is not atypical. https://www.businessinsider.com/ave…

3 years is deceptive - in an exponentially growing company, the majority of employees are fresh, pushing the average tenure low. The relevant number is "length of tenure at time of severance", which I believe skews much higher. Any company seeing 30% churn is having a bad, bad time.

[deleted]

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my fear at Google. I'm now remote for family reasons. If for some reason they decide to do layoffs the "cut the remote staff" approach might feel attractive for foolish execs.

Lots of smaller companies that have comparable compensation will continue to offer work from home. If a non-FANG position isn't a dealbreaker for you, you can do just fine if Google does end up requiring everyone to go back to the office.

> Lots of smaller companies that have comparable compensation

Do you mean smaller companies that all have similar compensation to each other or similar to FAANG? Cause very few companies out there are paying $400k+ for senior engineers. People join FAANG mostly for the pay - the brand recognition is just a perk.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#476
post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A problem I see with FB is that they don't control anything on which they run. They run on stuff from their competitors: it's either Google (Chrome / Android), Microsot (Windows / Edge) or Apple (OS X / Safari / iOS). You do realize you just described the vast majority of all tech companies that exist today, right?

Yeah, and fb is bigger than them. The question is more about what it takes to be a trillion dollar co.

So what? Where's the cutoff? Tell me one tech company besides Apple, Google, and Microsoft that logic wouldn't apply to. (No, Tesla doesn't count.)

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Now if this warrants deplatforming in the eyes of a resonable person What warrants deplatforming is your straight up admitance that you had nothing to contribute, were not acting in good faith, and were just asking a question to attack someone. Just say it with your chest. That way people can judge for themselves what the heck it is you are doing.

I think you're the one who's attacking users here. Asking why someone would join a company is not an attack, even if I have my reservations about the company, and I had no plans to further interact with them, but probably continue to have my opinions about their choice, unless they make a compelling argument.

My question was not made in bad faith, but insinuated to be a bad faith question by a different user, though as I said, I do understand the people who directly call out Meta employees, which I did not do here.

It is you and your peer who attacked the question, brought up conspiracy theories and called for deplatforming. So if you continue perhaps I'll be the one to reach out to mods. I have every damn right to ask someone on HN why they would work for Meta, without expecting intimidation from other users.

And yes, I continue to be surprised by people who would join Meta given all the shady and illegal things they've been doing over the years. So maybe one of you could give an honest answer, one that does not involve an attack. Maybe they weren't fully aware of Meta's issues, or people there generally don't care about these problems? That is what I was trying to understand.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my fear at Google. I'm now remote for family reasons. If for some reason they decide to do layoffs the "cut the remote staff" approach might feel attractive for foolish execs.

I'm in the same boat. I would be pretty insulted if they reneged on remote work and used that as the primary decision criteria on who to keep or let go. Especially since I took a pay cut to go remote and most of the folks I work with are in other offices anyway.

The pay cut feels like a decent defense to me. Somebody looking to cut payroll by 20% should hopefully look and say "wow, those folks working remotely outside of the bay area, nyc, seattle are getting paid 15-25% less, maybe that is good for us."

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am generally in favour of tightening migration laws in general around Europe, but even I can admit that this isn't accurate. Many European countries are wonderful places to live and raise families. Canada and the U.S. absolutely compete with the U.K., Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and even France and Germany, on skilled workers. The U.S. offers the best wages, and people motivated primarily by wag…

Why isn't this accurate? I never said Europe is not a great place. I said that the statistical majority of immigrants moving here are mostly low skilled refugees in the tens of thousands a month, rather than the much needed doctors, nurses, teachers and various workers and engineers wich are very few of the total immigration population.

While that may be true today, that's where future doctors, nurses, teachers, and various workers and engineers come from.

Young people + a functioning and accessible education system is what produces highly skilled workers.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it just heavily favors new grads, who just spent a year+ studying algorithms. Those with full time jobs have to spend precious hours of free time remembering how to do these.

This isn't what new grads actually do. They're in the same boat you're in, algo classes have a lot of theory but LC is a different beast entirely

Having the theory fresh in mind is a big help though I think.
Post reply on HN