Live data from Hacker News

Meta lays off 11,000 people

about.fb.com

351–360 of 1001 posts

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#351
post #309

I'd like to highlight this quote from the statement: > and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected Apple decisions + EU regulations?

I have a stupid question. Perhaps someone can explain. What is the link between Apple introducing new rules to nerf tracking and Meta making less money? I guess less tracking means less relevant ads. Are Meta's customers able to somehow evaluate this and are they now unwilling to spend as much money on advertising with them? Or is it that Meta now has lower click-through rates on iOS? Is there something else?

Less attribution. Attribution is more valuable than targeted ads.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#352

> I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that. As always with these things, I wonder what taking responsibility actually means in practice. Businesses usually try to find ways to correct for major failures in decision making. In the case of Zuck, given his ownership, does anything actually happen or change? I'm sure his net worth has been reduced by changes to Meta's share price, but he was a multi-billionai…

What would him taking responsibility in practice look like to you?

sacrificing some personal wealth for the good of the people that were affected

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#353
post #284

Sorry for all the people who’ve lost their jobs, but I’m excited to see the awesome world-changing stuff they’ll make now that they’re not spending their time building FB/Instagram.

Do you think that great, world-changing, folks go to Facebook to sit on a big salary? if they were going to do something awesome they probably wouldn't have been working there. now, if google lay off a lot of people... that would be different

Google and Facebook are both advertising companies, doesn't seem that different to me.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#354

> I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that. As always with these things, I wonder what taking responsibility actually means in practice. Businesses usually try to find ways to correct for major failures in decision making. In the case of Zuck, given his ownership, does anything actually happen or change? I'm sure his net worth has been reduced by changes to Meta's share price, but he was a multi-billionai…

I think a Bayesian perspective is helpful here. 1) How likely is it that Zuck makes that statement if he feels like he is responsible? 2) How likely is it if he doesn't feel responsible? I think the answers to those questions are quite similar, in which case hearing the statement doesn't actually tell us much.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you include Stripe, Klarna, Netflix, Uber, Robinhood, Snap, Lyft, etc. tech layoffs in recent months have topped 100,000 now.

Which is about how many people Google itself hired over the course of the Pandemic, for context. So it's not the end of the world. It really is a pretty minor set back so far.

I believe you are talking about amazon hiring 100000 warehouse workers, not google

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#356

Genuinely curious why Meta (other big companies) hired so much during the pandemic? Did one companies make a strategic business decision to hire more based on project needs, and other companies followed on in a copy cat way? I guess maybe meta was thinking “VR will take off during pandemic and folks won’t be able to put the goggles back down ever”. I could see some companies copying it just to hedge against other com…

Lots of over-hiring. It was a competition for scarce talent with a thinking that talented head count is a prime metric. I think it is, but it only works if that talent is contributing to the bottom line.

Poor HR management plays a big role too. I believe that capitalism requires ongoing "culling of the herd" - like 5% every year. This happens in many other businesses. Perhaps tech will now follow suit.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#357
post #32

So, after Twitter and Meta layoffs there will be around 15,000 people looking for the job. In one moment. With other layoffs it can be counted over 20,000 people IMHO. Will this over flood the market and bring expectations and salaries down?

In the small central EU country where I live, that wouldn't even saturate the open programmer positions - just about 1/10 of it. I'd be very surprised if it saturated the US market in any measurable way. If anything this just means these people will be working on more different products, and that means more opportunities for even more programmers in the future.

True, but these aren't ordinary engineers who'll settle for ordinary salaries. These are the top paid engineers in the industry - there are practically no places that can hire all 20,000 of them at their current salaries.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#359
post #32

So, after Twitter and Meta layoffs there will be around 15,000 people looking for the job. In one moment. With other layoffs it can be counted over 20,000 people IMHO. Will this over flood the market and bring expectations and salaries down?

In the small central EU country where I live, that wouldn't even saturate the open programmer positions - just about 1/10 of it. I'd be very surprised if it saturated the US market in any measurable way. If anything this just means these people will be working on more different products, and that means more opportunities for even more programmers in the future.

It does mean that a lot of folks will be looking for work, expecting really big salaries. Because they have become used to a very high standard of living, these salaries will actually be required.

MANGA companies pay ridiculously well.

I suspect a lot of "Reality sh*t sandwiches" will be in people's lunchboxes.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#360

Facebook has become the local town square on the Internet. Thousands of active local groups is something that other social networks will have a hard time replicating. Marketplace is another feature that takes advantage of Facebook having a strong local presence, everywhere. Why did they pivot towards VR and metaverse when Facebook's strength is being the "Localverse"?

Because FB missed owning the smartphone platform with their FB phone (apple + google), and so they want to own the next one in their opinion (VR-Oculus).
Post reply on HN