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Meta plans thousands more layoffs as soon as this week

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101–110 of 368 posts

Re: Meta plans thousands more layoffs as soon as this week

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may continue for another few weeks after „Stop engines“ signal is received, because recruiters still have their jobs and team leads will tell them: „Let’s keep recruiting funnel warm, while I’m checking if that signal really applies to us“. Until every team with an ambitious team lead is told that they are not special and they really should stop, they may still continue at least talking to people. And some may eve…

... and what else should recruiters do? Sit there do nothing and fear being cut? Better be able to show what a pipeline you have.

Yeah, some recruiters are going to keep recruiting until they're fired. There's always a chance that somebody needs a warm funnel and then they'll be the ones kept around when the others are laid off.

Re: Meta plans thousands more layoffs as soon as this week

#102
post #88

Two rounds of layoffs seems to say something that one round doesn't. You would expect that all things being equal there is never a scenario where it is better to do two cuts instead of just one. So why? a) things were much worse than realised. Maybe but it would have to be a big shock coming because Meta's general performance has held up OK, certainly nothing that would warrant this. b) HR reasons? some sort of requi…

d) different set of roles are going to be cleaned up? According to rumors meta is flattening and requires many managers to switch to ic roles with mandatory coding/delivering. Could be a chance to clear the house there too. Also perf review results, won’t be surprised if not only individual perf was reviewed but whole teams/orgs.

In general, I think, that Facebook (and rest of faang/ms/etc in similar proportions) now are building plans what/whom they need to cut off if they want to operate with 50k/35k/25k/15k total headcount.

Re: Meta plans thousands more layoffs as soon as this week

#103
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normal programmers call the sort() method in their language of choice.

Call sort() to merge two sorted linked lists? (Which is what this sub-thread is discussing.)

What domain of programming are you in that this is a common item of work you need to do?

Re: Meta plans thousands more layoffs as soon as this week

#104
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was how Microsoft was seen in 2013 as Ballmer stepped down: "Slumping stock price and unimaginative vision has left Microsoft marooned between a fading past and an uncertain future" An unimaginative vision is a common result of mass lay-offs. The ones that stay behind do not dare to take risks and prefer to stick to the status quo. Only after Satya Nadella took over, did Microsoft start to recover.

So FB / Meta needs a new CEO ?

I'm usually not one to say companies shouldn't take on risks to expand into new business areas, particularly not in times where the core product is bleeding lucrative users... but here it's the same shit as with Twitter prior to Parag Agrawal's term or with Elon Musk's dozens of ventures.

It's one thing and bad enough if board members have sometimes dozens of posts... but Zuckerberg, Musk, Dorsey all show it's not a good idea when an actually active C-level exec has too many things on their table. And it's especially not good if they use company resources for their personal pet projects.

Re: Meta plans thousands more layoffs as soon as this week

#105
post #88

Two rounds of layoffs seems to say something that one round doesn't. You would expect that all things being equal there is never a scenario where it is better to do two cuts instead of just one. So why? a) things were much worse than realised. Maybe but it would have to be a big shock coming because Meta's general performance has held up OK, certainly nothing that would warrant this. b) HR reasons? some sort of requi…

b) and c) It is exactly Mark’s plan. He called 2023 “the year of efficiency”, meaning that he wants to flatten the whole organization and get closer to startup velocity (and cost). He communicated this theme during performance reviews, as suggested by the article.

it seems striking that Carmack left pretty much with that criticism and Mark is now probably executing exactly what Carmack would have prescribed. It'd be interesting to correlate how closely the thinking around this second wave started to when Carmack made his announcement.

Re: Meta plans thousands more layoffs as soon as this week

#106
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was how Microsoft was seen in 2013 as Ballmer stepped down: "Slumping stock price and unimaginative vision has left Microsoft marooned between a fading past and an uncertain future" An unimaginative vision is a common result of mass lay-offs. The ones that stay behind do not dare to take risks and prefer to stick to the status quo. Only after Satya Nadella took over, did Microsoft start to recover.

So FB / Meta needs a new CEO ?

No, Mark's going to crash it into the ground.

Re: Meta plans thousands more layoffs as soon as this week

#109
Burning money on the risque projects should be the industry standard. No matter what would happen here, either of outcomes are positive. Dying of facebook or making cool vr toys are no things to be mad about. People are simultaneously defending stale tech companies to keep their cushy jobs and criticizing them when they are in the R&D phase burning piles of cash, which is the necessity.

Re: Meta plans thousands more layoffs as soon as this week

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot more computing horsepower by being tethered, really. A standalone unit naturally can't have the same kind of graphical fidelity than something tethered to a full-powered current-gen console. I think there are two strategic errors worth considering here: - wireless vs. tethered. Was it really worth it going wireless or was there viability in being tethered? - the hype around PSVR2 is around the Horizon game, whi…

I think Meta really doesn't get the whole gaming console business. They got too excited with the technology for technology sake, and drank too much of the Snowcrash-esque kool-aid to realize that the most obvious target audience to drive meaningful usage is harcore gamers. And the novelty of Beat Saber will only go so far; you really need AAA titles and publishers. But this would mean investing heavily in tools and S…

> the most obvious target audience to drive meaningful usage is harcore gamers. And the novelty of Beat Saber will only go so far; you really need AAA titles and publishers.

I really feel like what you need is omni-directional treadmills. I really like VR rhythm games, but for most other games beyond that feel like you really need some more natural way of moving around. The only exception to that would be things where you'd naturally be playing sitting (in a cockpit, in a car, etc).

> The launch of Meta Quest Pro was abysmal

As far as Meta being out of touch goes, the Quest Pro not shipping with a total light blocker seems pretty indicative. i.e. you need to spend 50USD on https://www.meta.com/quest/accessories/quest-pro-full-light-... if you really want to properly game on it, on top of the $$$ you already need to fork out for the headset.

> I received the PSVR2 last week, but didn't have time to unbox yet. Really hoping it gives Meta a run for their money, and sets the bar high (despite being tethered).

If I compare the PC, Quest, and PS versions of a game like Beat Saber the PC version is moddable and a vastly better game for it with loads of custom contents, the Quest version is semi-moddable but cranky about it, and the PS version AFAIK isn't moddable. Even for games with official custom song support (e.g. Synth Riders), the PS version doesn't support any of those.

Even if technically superior in some ways I'd consider PSVR2 mostly an expensive paperweight unless they were to release PC drivers for it (which they won't). Only seemingly decent piece of exclusive content for it seems to be Horizon: Call of the Mountain, but that's only 10 hours or so.

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