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Meta lays off 11,000 people

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Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#602

The world runs on certain types of software. I doesn't run on social media, or video streaming, or "AI/ML", or search. So it doesn't actually run on FAANG companies. It is no surprise they are shedding workers when the free money runs out. But if you are willing to work on "boring software" that provides actual economic value - logistics, HR/Payroll, or really anything people actually pay to use because it boosts the…

Plenty of businesses have Facebook or another Facebook property (i.e. IG) as one of or the only way to get in touch with them. Plenty of individuals use Whatsapp or Facebook as their primary contact database and messaging platform.

The "post news articles on a feed" is probably not essential to too many people, but the messaging and communication features are in a lot of cases.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#603

Facebook ("Meta") made $46.7 Billion in Profit in 2021. They have $42 Billion in cash. If the average engineer is paid $150k then these 11k people would cost the company 150,000 x 11,000 = 1,650,000,000 ($1.6 Billion/year) Mark Zuckerberg could _easily_ afford to keep these people employed and focus their efforts towards improving the safety of the platform e.g: stopping Human Trafficking, Drug Dealing and Child Abus…

I'm not really sure what the point of the layoffs here are. Are they realizing that they had no idea how to effectively put 11.000 people to work? What are they trying to achieve?

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#604
post #597

Facebook ("Meta") made $46.7 Billion in Profit in 2021. They have $42 Billion in cash. If the average engineer is paid $150k then these 11k people would cost the company 150,000 x 11,000 = 1,650,000,000 ($1.6 Billion/year) Mark Zuckerberg could _easily_ afford to keep these people employed and focus their efforts towards improving the safety of the platform e.g: stopping Human Trafficking, Drug Dealing and Child Abus…

>If the average engineer is paid $150k Haha. It’s more like twice this, with another ~50% in overhead costs like healthcare, payroll taxes, real estate, etc.

They have employees outside Silicon Valley

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#605
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?

>Will this over flood the market and bring expectations and salaries down? Well I predict two things: One, the days of $200-500k TC being common and widespread are going to end. If you're in this bracket, or about to break into it, yeah be worried, it's probably going to evaporate. Two, the CV value of Meta, Snap, Stripe, etc. is also going to end. I don't think they will command the same premium in the jobs market f…

Non-developers in the Bay Area dream of this happening.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#606

> 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…

Is there a better way to say this?

I think the meaning is pretty clearly "Many of you are being let go not because of poor performance on your part, but bad decisions on my part."

It's acknowledging fault.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#608

The world runs on certain types of software. I doesn't run on social media, or video streaming, or "AI/ML", or search. So it doesn't actually run on FAANG companies. It is no surprise they are shedding workers when the free money runs out. But if you are willing to work on "boring software" that provides actual economic value - logistics, HR/Payroll, or really anything people actually pay to use because it boosts the…

I would say that any software that has 4 billion MAU quite reasonably can be classified as "the world runs on it"-tier software.

If I had to guess, what I think you're doing is you're letting your opinion about the morality of FAANG-like software (ads, tracking, mal-influencing, etc.) be a judge on it's utility.

FAANG-like software is like fossil fuels. Fossil fuels, like much of FAANG-software, have many immoral aspects, yet they have utility to the point of "the world runs on it".

Google, DDG etc. connected the internet. Facebook, twitter etc. connected people on the internet. I'de say that's something of a big deal.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#609

I'm old and this is the third time around for these sorts of layoffs in tech. (Was around for dot-com bust of 2000-ish and financial meltdown post-2008.) One thing you want to keep in mind is that decent severance packages are usually only a thing for the FIRST round of layoffs. There will be more, and the payouts will be a LOT worse. Just, FYI.

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Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#610

Facebook ("Meta") made $46.7 Billion in Profit in 2021. They have $42 Billion in cash. If the average engineer is paid $150k then these 11k people would cost the company 150,000 x 11,000 = 1,650,000,000 ($1.6 Billion/year) Mark Zuckerberg could _easily_ afford to keep these people employed and focus their efforts towards improving the safety of the platform e.g: stopping Human Trafficking, Drug Dealing and Child Abus…

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