Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring • Hacker News Board

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#491

Post by htkibar » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:56 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #59

ianbutler wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no the market has corrected to 2019 levels because the ridiculous amount of free cash has stopped! Clearly the era of tech is over and we should all wrap up and go home. I don't think there is anything substantial here to suggest this is anything other than a normal recession and even if this was like the dotcom bubble, these companies aren't like dotcom era startups. They're massive behemoths intertwined with the…

2005 was a pretty shitty time to be in software. I could do without another one of those. If we avoid that level of suck for another 10 years I can just take early retirement.

Tech is much more integral to our lives than ever. I think what we might see instead is earning decreasing to a certain extent though. Non-FAANG type of companies still need plenty of tech; and they tend to pay decent enough.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#492

Post by adam_arthur » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 2:56 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #489

adam_arthur wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 4% yield is not very good when you can buy risk free treasuries yielding more. Meta's shares outstanding have barely changed over time. Issuing equity to employees dilutes share count, buybacks counter this somewhat. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/META/meta-platform... At current valuation multiples buybacks are pretty smart for Meta, but many of these companies were doing buybacks at 3% yield valuations

Very few s&p companies are hitting 4% yields on their dividends/buybacks. Meta shares outstanding are down more than 3% since last year.

Dividend is different than a buyback. Buying back at a 3% earnings multiple is not equivalent to a 3% dividend.

It's much worse for shareholders. The company is investing in something that yields below the risk free rate of return.

Put another way, if they gave that same money back to shareholders via a distribution, the shareholders could earn more buying US treasuries with that distribution.

Buybacks are largely motivated by execs using company funds to increase their compensation, even if ROI is poor on the buyback. Otherwise they would never buyback at such low yields. Dividends don't go to option/RSU holders.

But anyway, a buyback at 10% earnings yield like Meta has, roughly, is a good use of funds

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#493

Post by michaelcampbell » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 3:16 PM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #414

neves wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thinkit is impossible to get this number

What do you mean? Every employer I've worked for had data for the starting date of their employees, when someone leaves you have an end date of employment. It's a pretty simple metric to calculate.

I think by "this number" they mean "a better metric", maybe?

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#494

Post by michaelcampbell » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 3:19 PM UTC

eftychis wrote: post #300

BurningFrog wrote: post #234

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.

Yeah and if he does know please share that with everyone else (people ok with terrifying news at least). We are not stabilizing. There are serious supply issues, staffing issues, wild currency fluctuations, and fear -- including of nuclear conflict. I am not sure in what world this is stabilization. It is easy to hit on the "mule" i.e. the average Joe and say "I gave you too much money, that you never saw, thus why Y…

> Only stabilization is to the bottom.

If that's where the economy should be (I don't know), then moving towards it is stabilizing, no?

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#495

Post by yamtaddle » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 3:36 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #261

lotsofpulp wrote: post #232

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…

Without the momentum of subscribers who just haven't bothered to unsubscribe, I suspect they'd already be dead. Like, if they had to acquire those same users fresh, today, I don't think they could.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#496

Post by inadequatespace » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 3:39 PM UTC

EFreethought wrote: post #377

woeirua wrote: post #175

Zuck is absolutely going to call back all the remote engineers that he hired over the past two years to the office, and just like with Tesla, those who refuse will be involuntarily separated. Work from home, _is_ going to die at the megacorps.

I do not understand why so many companies are so intent on getting people back into the office. I looked at the income statements for a few techs and banks on Yahoo Finance, and for the tech companies their net income is up from 2019 (in some cases doubled), and for the banks it is about the same as 2019 (I picked 2019 because that was before COVID). Companies are doing fine with remote work. I don't get what their p…

Companies aren’t purely rational.

Middle managers are probably less effective or at least more obviously as such due to remote work.

They lobby higher-ups, who they have closer contact with than the ICs by definition, with various propaganda

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#497

Post by colinmhayes » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 3:49 PM UTC

adam_arthur wrote: post #492

colinmhayes wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few s&p companies are hitting 4% yields on their dividends/buybacks. Meta shares outstanding are down more than 3% since last year.

Dividend is different than a buyback. Buying back at a 3% earnings multiple is not equivalent to a 3% dividend. It's much worse for shareholders. The company is investing in something that yields below the risk free rate of return. Put another way, if they gave that same money back to shareholders via a distribution, the shareholders could earn more buying US treasuries with that distribution. Buybacks are largely mo…

Buybacks have a lot of motivations. Execs trying to boost stock is certainly one. But shareholders do prefer buybacks. Claiming otherwise is just wrong. If a shareholder wants to get out of the equity and into bonds since rates are high they can cash out through the buyback.

> Put another way, if they gave that same money back to shareholders via a distribution

They literally are. Buybacks are just as much shareholder distributions as dividends.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#498

Post by dougmwne » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 3:50 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #411

eloff wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe doesn't have a population collapse. They make up the difference with immigration, as does Canada and the US. Japan and China do not.

Most immigration to Europe is incredibly low-bar unskilled economic chancers interested in exploiting the welfare state, not skilled workers, doctors and engineers like you get in US and Canada which have stricter immigration policies.

In my city we have medical students coming to study from all over Asia and Africa. They will become doctors, surgeons and other specialists. Many will use this as a stepping stone to stay in the EU. What you said is flat out false.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#499

Post by scottLobster » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 4:06 PM UTC

Rapzid wrote: post #347

scottLobster wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks to the shale boom natural gas has been effectively free in the US (as a byproduct of shale oil production) for the last few years. For various reasons the boom has reverted to the mean (although shale is still very much around), and as a result natural gas in the US has gone from "free" to "not free". Prices will go up, but we'll be fine. We still literally have more gas than we know what to do with. It's the…

I'm not sure historical natural gas prices support this idea of "free". Would need to crunch the numbers but at a glance the price came down about 50% in the 2010s from the aughts. It's had a few big, temporary dips most recently during the start of the pandemic in 2020. It certainly wasn't "free" in Feb 2021. We have about a 3% hike on our bills now to pay down the record profits gas producers received. My bill last…

"Free" in the sense of free extraction. Obviously you still need to pay for distribution, but the shale fields to this day are flaring off natural gas that they otherwise have no way to sell. That 50% drop in the 2010s is the shale boom.

Now that shale has calmed down and global demand has spiked, there's now a cost for the actual natural gas itself. A doubling of prices may seem like a lot, but historically the price is still well below average. Much like we've gotten used to free money over the last ten years, we've also gotten used to free gas.

That's not to say it isn't a problem, but we aren't in danger of running out of gas or any runaway price spikes.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#500

Post by sleton38234234 » Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

411111111111111 wrote: post #155

TacticalCoder wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iOS privacy has killed facebook advertisements 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). Despite the downturn these three behemoths are still enjoying a market cap in the trillion+. Meta is actually down to $360 bn. Meta controls neither the…

> They want to change that by having people switching en masse to the Metaverse but I'm really not sure this is happening. The tech isn't even close to there yet. Current gen VR tech demos sparks the imagination, and it's definitely great for people that want to like it... But that's not even close to good enough for mass adoption. Their teased prototypes look like a solid upgrade, but it's still not going to be enou…

The biggest question isn't even whether its technology is ready. The biggest question is WHY?

Why as a consumer, do I want to wear something on my head? especially since, handheld phones are already way more engaging than I need. Are VR headsets just another entertainment device (something I have way too much of already) or will it facilitate work from home?