241–250 of 282 posts
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It didn't rescued them from insolvency, so who cares.
I wonder how the world would be different if Microsoft had just let them die. Would it be better or worse? Would we all have slate-style smartphones now, or would they have taken much longer to arise?
I just have to point out the irony that a company which believes so much in virtual work that they renamed themselves after the "metaverse" is now thinking to require employees to return to the office.
Zuckerberg seems to lack perspective on all of the stuff he’s appropriated. For instance, basically every cyberpunk novel with a metaverse depicts it as a dystopian nightmare.
I just have to point out the irony that a company which believes so much in virtual work that they renamed themselves after the "metaverse" is now thinking to require employees to return to the office.
I don't see that as ironic. It in fact reinforces the importance of the metaverse. If there is a benefit to being in person, but not everyone can physically be in person being virtually present would be the next best thing.If presence wasn't shown to be valuable it would mean that the metaverse wouldn't be valuable for work purposes. Remote work is here to stay in society so finding ways to improve it will be valuabl…
Outside of some very specific circumstances, I have a hard time seeing the value of VR meeting for work purposes that regular old video chat doesn't already have.
> > Our early analysis of performance data suggests that engineers who either joined Meta in-person and then transferred to remote or remained in-person performed better on average than people who joined remotely. This analysis also shows that engineers earlier in their career perform better on average when they work in-person with teammates at least three days a week. This requires further study, but our hypothesis…
Why would they search of a reason if they see their employees being more productive WFH and they can save a significant share of their capex by getting rid of their real estate footprints? HackerNews needs to stop with the motivated reasoning when it comes to arguing against RTO. Every single major tech company clearly has bucket loads of data showing some portion of their employees being more productive working from…
That's very far from clear.
> > Our early analysis of performance data suggests that engineers who either joined Meta in-person and then transferred to remote or remained in-person performed better on average than people who joined remotely. This analysis also shows that engineers earlier in their career perform better on average when they work in-person with teammates at least three days a week. This requires further study, but our hypothesis…
Most business decisions, including this one, are made on incomplete data. Expecting a level of scientific rigor such that conclusions are unassailable is not realistic, as science moves slowly on high-certainty and business moves quickly on low-moderate certainty. If you don’t like the conclusion your company has reached, it’s going to be a lot faster and more fruitful to change companies than to change their mind. I…
A big chunk of the commenter community here is ready to hand the reigns of this decision-making to AI, simply because a data-driven decision must be the correct one. No need to look too deep at the completeness of that data or the methodology under which it was collected and analyzed.
The most important point is missing. The reason for Meta layoffs is that metaverse is not getting enough traction. They wasted billions and they blame engineers for WFH? It's nonsense. Moreover, with multiple rounds of layoffs nobody's gonna join Meta. Why joining? Getting 500k "salary" with a risk of being laid off in the next 6 months and spending the next 6 months looking for a job? It's not 500k, folks. It's a fa…
> The company is just unstable Minimum net income of $10 billion a year for the past 7 years is now apparently unstable
Blackberry profits were looking good in 2009 as well, it wasn't until 2012 that the wheels came off.
I've noticed a similar effect from tall management hierarchies in my career. You end up spending hours every week making presentations to managers, working with managers to make presentations to higher-up managers, etc. Everything is done in terms of "What will Jim (the VP) think of this?"
I have the same experience. How can we avoid this?
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What do we do with all that productivity gain though? Back in the days of "swap money for product" capitalism the answer was "more product, yay", but now a considerable part of the economy is completely disconnected from that mechanism and is only competing in the zero sum game of visibility as a service. If Facebook employees magically got 48h per work day all we would get were steeper walls in the dopamine traps we…
Regarding you sidetrack: When you swap money for products, you don't need time. If the economy shifts to visibility and attention, instant transactions are not possible anymore. Whatever people produce, somebody needs time to consume it. So all the productivity gains will be used to create more audience.
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I've noticed that people can conflate "detailed spec" with "terribly meticulous process". Close collaboration with design/product doesn't mean that writing things down isn't useful, and can come in handy specifically: 1. When capturing complex logic areas, especially if related to any areas that are related to money or legal considerations 2. When onboarding new people on any side who need to learn about or get conte…
I would go further even and say that for any team that doesn't all do just one thing, developing the spec is half the work. Once all the interconnections are figured out and the mechanical engineers know what needs to hold what shape at what temperature and pressure, and the metallurgists know what chemicals will be touching the metal, and the power connectors to sensors are all numbered so you know how many you need…
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The other deep irony is that many tech companies ruined the office by forcing open office designs. It was no secret that employees found them difficult places to be productive. And now they wonder why nobody wants to go there.
I wouldn’t mind going into an office if I had a private office to work in. It would get me out of the house and put me in work mode but it would also let me actually do work. Open plan is just awful. Everyone can watch you and nobody does any work and its so loud and impossible to talk on the phone.
Meanwhile, my wife is dealing with health issues, but can't speak English very well. So I have to talk to various doctors' offices and insurance companies all the time, and every time I make a call I feel the need to hoof it across the building so I'm not blasting medical details into the cube farm. The quiet rooms are usually all full of people in meetings, so I have to hide in the mail room or walk a couple of blocks to my car.
I'm done with this shit.. I think I'm going to hop ship after my next $100k RSU vesting, this kind of work is just too undignified for me