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Meta lays off 11,000 people

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Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#861

I worked at Facebook when covid first hit. Zuckerburg treated everyone in the company very, very well. There was a blanket "don't worry about performance, take care of your families" guarantee that honestly was an enormous help. The thing that particularly struck me though was the way he handled contract workers like (some of) the kitchen staff, cleaners, etc. These people don't work for Facebook and he had zero obli…

It’s easy to be generous when times are good and your equity is significantly overvalued relative to fundamentals

> equity is significantly overvalued relative to fundamentals

Which fundamentals?

The $117.9 billion in revenue and $39.4 billion of net profit in 2021 [1]?

The price to earnings ratio of 9.22, which is far lower than the NASDAQ average of around 28.0 [2]?

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/277229/facebooks-annual-... [2] https://ycharts.com/companies/NDAQ/pe_ratio

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#862

I worked at Facebook when covid first hit. Zuckerburg treated everyone in the company very, very well. There was a blanket "don't worry about performance, take care of your families" guarantee that honestly was an enormous help. The thing that particularly struck me though was the way he handled contract workers like (some of) the kitchen staff, cleaners, etc. These people don't work for Facebook and he had zero obli…

Quoted post unavailable.

Same boat as you. I understand the privacy concerns and the fear that Facebook is changing society for the worse, all of this is worth discussing but I don't see it as an evil company trying to actively ruin people.

Truly excited to see how far they can push VR and AI.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#863

I worked at Facebook when covid first hit. Zuckerburg treated everyone in the company very, very well. There was a blanket "don't worry about performance, take care of your families" guarantee that honestly was an enormous help. The thing that particularly struck me though was the way he handled contract workers like (some of) the kitchen staff, cleaners, etc. These people don't work for Facebook and he had zero obli…

Quoted post unavailable.

Facebook (and social media in general) has made the world a more divided place full of sadder and angrier people. He runs a company that optimizes for that scenario while accruing unimaginable sums of capital, and he doubled down with Meta. Hmm I wonder why some people are not fans.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#864

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 2 cents is that it's going to be mostly recruiters, sales, customer success, and other misc operations folks. That's the pattern I've been observing since the post-covid layoffs have begun.

The Meta layoff has many engineers affected. Probably at least ~2000

Right.. so that's barely 1/5th of the layoffs

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#865
post #270

16 weeks of base pay + 6 months of health insurance and everything else, looks like a decent severance package at least. This seems better handled than Twitter's layoffs.

I've read several times in those comments that this is a "decent" severance package.

I'm not that familiar with the US legalities and practices, what's considered a "good" and "very good" severance package over there, if 16 weeks of base pay + 6 months of health insurance (for the employees and their families btw) is only "decent"? Is it common to get way better? From abroad we think that the severance packages in the US are at the will of the employers and so are usually very bad.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#866
post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Facing repercussions on the level of those he's laying off. If he's responsible he should be the first one out the door.

That’s impossible because he is already profoundly rich. There is no way to simulate the hardship without stealing what is in the bank.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#867
post #601

Amazing what an iOS update did.

Apart from that, I think the bigger ongoing folly here is this whole Metaverse thing.

I used to think that, but recently tried some AR glasses that filled my whole usable field of view with an editable PowerPoint slide with clear text… yeah, the tech seems like a big deal for this new digital world

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#868
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.

Thank you. Saying “my bad” is the first step. Fixing it afterwards is what good people do.

When someone is accused of a crime, they can plead innocent or guilty. That is step one.

There are more steps after that…

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#869

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Facebook (and social media in general) has made the world a more divided place full of sadder and angrier people. He runs a company that optimizes for that scenario while accruing unimaginable sums of capital, and he doubled down with Meta. Hmm I wonder why some people are not fans.

Social media is just a tool for political atomization.

People were already angry on AM radio and cable "news" channels. Gerrymandering works on political maps and demographics - politicians have figured that by boxing voters into bins and away from the center, they can have their votes forever.

Re: Meta lays off 11,000 people

#870

While many are commenting that these layoffs are sensible given the situation, I am fearful that laying off approximately 13% of Meta employees will lead to a less connected world. I don’t think people fully understand the magnitude of step-backwards it will be in terms of people connecting in this world. Does Zuckerberg take responsibility for what this will mean to people who simply need to connect more through gre…

Facebook is cancer.
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