Live data from Hacker News

Meta lays off 11,000 people

about.fb.com

821–830 of 1001 posts

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#821
post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As always with these things, I wonder what taking responsibility actually means in practice. Remember a few years ago when people were asking "Why can't people just say they made a mistake and own up to it instead of shifting blame?" Now that people are taking responsibility for mistakes publicly the response is "Yes, but what does that mean?" Taking responsibility means just that. It means saying you fucked up and…

Taking responsibility is more than just admitting reponsibility. It is also about bearing the consequences. Such as, if you broke something, you fix it. If you lost something, you pay up to replace it. Or similar. A manager usually can't fix a problem themselves though. But unless they pay a cost for their mistakes, they are not really taking responsibility. Then they just pay lip service to the word.

What specific consequence would you expect him to bear? It's not like there's any meaningful financial consequence that he would actually feel. He ain't gonna know what food insecurity or the specter of medical bankruptcy feels like. Should he impose some consequence on himself, like he only gets to spend $1 million on leisure over the next year?

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#822
post #91
post #27

> I’ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go _How_ does Meta have 85,000 employees? That's an _incredible_ size of an organisation.

My experience -- having been near the top of organizations with standard politics -- is that one of the goals of every executive is to maximize headcount. For example, if I am managing 100 people, I am far better off than if I am managing 10 people, doing the exact same thing. I will be able to step into better, higher-paying roles if I have experience managing large headcount. My salary will be higher, and I'll have…

> is that one of the goals of every executive is to maximize headcount

should/do they consider other metrics: revenue, active users, etc under management?

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#823

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Good question. I don't know the answer. And that points to the problem, really. In rhe world as ut is, there isnt really a way to realistically imagine a CEO doing anything meaningful to take responsibility for a self-admitted error lile this. If, just for the sake of argument, I said he should resign or compensate the affected people out of his own pocket, I'm fairly sure that people here would think I was being nai…

If I hired someone and they made the value of the company go down 73% in one year, I would probably fire them.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#824

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am particularly sad about current state of Meta. Regardless of what people think of Facebook and Zuck, he was unapologetically a hacker. I visited FB campus few times and emphasis on hacker culture everywhere was just immensely delightful. He knew the value of good hacker and raised bar for the compensation across the entire industry. Ship your code today was absolutely refreshing. Number of open source projects th…

I get your point, but is that really such a great thing when it comes to business ethics? e.g., spying on people and hacking their private communications just to get ahead: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-i...

He was 19 there right? Thankfully I've seen people who were writing keyloggers at that age be very decent, good people, so that article isn't an indictment of who he is now - plenty of things to look at more recent than that. It would be really nice to hear him candidly express how he fucked up with the rohingya, and content promotion/moderation.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#825
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.

I mean, the "world-changing" stuff they're investing in is what directly led to this layoff. The metaverse was the most heavily impacted by these layoffs.

Smart people can also change the world by working on climate change, improving healthcare costs, addressing the energy crisis, coming up with new ways to mass manufacturer consumer goods at reasonable prices without shipping things halfway around the world and back, help an increasingly aging population do basic stuff.... the metaverse (maybe crypto?) were just natural evolutions of existing business models, but these weren't the world changing things people need, so capitalism (the brutal nature is why it works) didn't reward it.

If these smart people spend their brain energy to address these needs, which the world actually needs, they'll find success again, and the world will be changed in the way it needs to be... and frankly that's the way capitalism is supposed to work. Changing the world is only rewarded when people want it.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#826
post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As always with these things, I wonder what taking responsibility actually means in practice. Remember a few years ago when people were asking "Why can't people just say they made a mistake and own up to it instead of shifting blame?" Now that people are taking responsibility for mistakes publicly the response is "Yes, but what does that mean?" Taking responsibility means just that. It means saying you fucked up and…

Taking responsibility is more than just admitting reponsibility. It is also about bearing the consequences. Such as, if you broke something, you fix it. If you lost something, you pay up to replace it. Or similar. A manager usually can't fix a problem themselves though. But unless they pay a cost for their mistakes, they are not really taking responsibility. Then they just pay lip service to the word.

Responsibility actually is just admitting fault, IMHO. It's accountability that's all about paying the cost for the fault.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#827
post #690

I'm sorry, but honestly fuck Meta. Conducting psychological experiments on users without consent, and enabling psyops from organizations like Cambridge Analytica, is enough for me to never use their services. I hope they implode as a company. I happily said no when people from meta approached me on LinkedIn.

Billions of people use the service for "free". As long as everyone knows they are what's for sale, the rest makes sense. Any company of this size is going to sway discourse so it's time to accept that. I for one do not and thus deleted our family accounts long ago.

> I for one do not and thus deleted our family accounts long ago.

I have seen many people brainwashed by highly targeted ads and conspiracies that found them on facebook. Those people vote, break into congress, etc.

deleting your individual account doesn't change that

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#828

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I think the folks who rode the ride a couple years back got it good: somewhere around 2012-2019 was great time for someone who had worked at marquee tech companies, had massive stock options, and commanded premium on the job market when they moved on from their orgs.

No post body was provided.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#829
post #690

I'm sorry, but honestly fuck Meta. Conducting psychological experiments on users without consent, and enabling psyops from organizations like Cambridge Analytica, is enough for me to never use their services. I hope they implode as a company. I happily said no when people from meta approached me on LinkedIn.

>Conducting psychological experiments on users without consent

This is a really malicious way to describe showing two users the same button but in different locations

Post reply on HN