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Meta lays off 11,000 people

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Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#631

Post by sausagefeet »

adrianmsmith wrote: post #553
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #246

> 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 thought this https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1590304422735015936 was a good explanation: > What this means is they don’t blame outside factors. Compare this w layoffs where the CEO says this is due to “the economy” “the macro climate”, suggesting they did everything right. When someone says they take accountability, it means it was their poor decisions - that could have/should have been better - that led to…

This is a pretty poor take, IMO. I have not seen any difference in results of a CEO who "takes responsibility" vs "blames outside factors". Taking responsibility seems to be a cheap way to come off as a better person without actually doing anything differently.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#632

Post by pm90 »

daniaal wrote: post #75

Google did the same sort of crazy hiring and i wonder if they will be next to layoff thousands

Google's ad network is pretty ubiquitous since it spans almost all the known web. Facebook is pretty big too but relies mostly on its own platform (FB, Inst etc.). For sure Google is affected, but I imagine the impact is less.

Also one thing that shouldn't be missed: Google controls Android, the most popular mobile OS in the world (except US maybe) so it wasn't affected as strongly by Apple's clampdown.

The lesson to Zuck is clear: he absolutely needs to own the next digital platform, and in his mind its the metaverse so he's going all in. I question the decisions he makes but the reasoning seems pretty solid at least (unlike a certain Electric Car maker)

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#633

Post by dboreham »

eschneider wrote: post #146

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.

Except the very last round, where you're the person left to handle sale of IP and so forth. Then they'll pay you well to stick around for a few months doing nothing.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#634

Post by khyryk »

BurningFrog wrote: post #566
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #246

> 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…

It just means he accepts the blame, and holds no one else responsible. Do people want him to fire himself to show he means it, or what?

People have a problem with it because it's a string of words without meaning. Better to leave it out than to sully modern language further with meaningless gibberish that looks like language.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#635

Post by system2 »

zffr wrote: post #626

> I view layoffs as a last resort, so we decided to rein in other sources of cost before letting teammates go. So spending a few billion less on the metaverse was not an option?

Not a fan of Zucc but he is trying something. What else would you do to Facebook to save it from TikTok's takeover?

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#636

Post by chasd00 »

mattmaroon wrote: post #364
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #246

> 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…

Yeah that’s about it. He’s lost about $90b in net worth. I suppose you can debate whether that’s punishment enough or not when you’ve got another $38b left or whatever. But I’ll tell you this from experience: lasting people off because you chose to grow too fast is really, really hard. I’ve done it, though in my case it was a lot fewer people and I actually knew and loved them all. If I had to lay off 11,000 people I…

He's lost a lot but it's not like he's having to ask his wife to stop going out to lunch with her friends. There's a level of wealth where the numbers just stop having any real meaning. $1B is still multiple lifetimes of the most decadent luxury currently possible.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#637

Post by hashtag-til »

cnees wrote: post #455

"We’ve shifted more of our resources onto a smaller number of high priority growth areas [like] our long-term vision for the metaverse" Imagine laying off eleven thousand people so you can keep clinging to the disintegrating corpse of the metaverse.

I'm sure there are lots of competent people putting a lot of effort in "Metaverse", but to me it looks really just yet another VR world. Does anyone know what is the concrete new thing it would make successful?

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#638

Post by jollyllama »

tootie wrote: post #299
eschneider wrote: post #146

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.

This is going to be a repeat of 2000, not 2008. There's seemingly no contagion and no secular stagnation. This is just unwinding of the cheap money era that flowed overwhelmingly into SV. You'll see a cooling off of red hot compensation, a lot of failed startups that no one ever understood and the ongoing crypto crash. This may end up being enough to trigger a mild recession.

People act like there were no layoffs between 2010 and 2000 but there were plenty, if you were in the wrong company and/or the wrong sector. IBM comes to mind. There were still CEOs out there trimming the fat while everyone else was getting high on the hype. If you had exposure to this, you're ready, at least emotionally, for what's going on now. If you didn't, you're probably shellshocked right now. Don't worry, you'll get used to it.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#639

Post by pm90 »

hinkley wrote: post #578

I totally would have been part of this layoff if I’d responded to any of the many, many FB recruiters who have contacted me in the last 18 months. Why didn’t I reply? Several reasons, but importantly because if you can’t say anything nice sometimes it’s best not to say anything at all.

I explicitly asked them to put me on a blacklist because there's no way in hell I'm working for Facebook. They may not be directly culpable, but they allowed their platform to be used in ways to subvert democratic norms and institutions (West), promote and coordinate Genocide (Muslims in India and Myanmar) etc.

I honestly consider it better to work for Raytheon; at least the weapons they make are regulated and subject to stronger scrutiny.

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