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…
I see no evidence of that. The recent announcements are at best a re-org, or worse a cleanup of three+ reorgs where FAIR and others were subsumed into RL-R.
It is clear that The Meta leadership doesn't really understand what they are doing. The first cut I suggest was designed to send a message to investors that meta is "serious" about something. I assume that this second cut is because not enough people left of their own accord.
However none of this is actually a change in strategy. Where are the product changes? where is the announcement of key priorities for the different Apps? are they going to start putting users first? or just add more shit into each app until something sticks?
The key problem Meta has is that they only have one effective leader: zuck. Everyone else appears to be underwhelming.
Boz: arrogance personified. None of the misteps in the last 4 years are ever his fault. It was market forces that meant that raybans failed, rather than releasing them before they were finished. the quest pro didn't sell, not boz's fault. The market wasnt ready for a capable device with absolutely no software support for the new features. Want to join your friend in a VR game? sure! just perform 15 clicks and wait 7 minutes. No not those clicks, no you need to press the hidden sub menu silly! Oh, no, remember you need to have an OS update first. 10 minute update tax!
Mosseri: Pivoting Instagram to video, because tiktok. just push push push. Oh wait our cash cow users are pissed off, ok, roll back. "there was no way to forsee this problem" despite everyone telling them it was a horrid user experience.
Blue app: Lets just push random shit into your stream, don't worry we'll roll out the user controls next half. Don't like the content? tough my metric is to get more shit in your feed, if you don't like it, its not my job to fix it, thats someone elses.