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A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

washingtonpost.com

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Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#71

Post by darkwizard42 »

I can't take this article seriously. They are having a hard time hiring in 2022-2023 because of the scandal of 2016?? Facebook remains one of the TOP landing spots for any engineer still. The rep might be tarnished a bit, but you would be doing yourself a disservice if your company wouldn't consider an engineer with 2-5 years of senior SWE experience from FB. EVEN after the stock downturn it remains near the top in prestige and compensation -- though admittedly they are hiring a lot less and firing a lot more.

I think traditional journalism fails hard when covering tech because tech moves and evolves so quickly and this journalist in particular tries to weave a multi-year story that isn't as connected (or the threads they have chosen aren't) as it seems.

Both with Google's "Don't be evil" and Facebook's "Move fast and break things" the media got what they wanted, a nice sound bite that was (at least for a time) the motto of the company. Things change, companies evolve, the "risky" projects are more expensive, the failures are magnified (Google+, FB Phone, etc.) so companies themselves change. I don't think its fair to keep holding them to an ethos that hasn't/doesn't scale.

I don't know, I'm just tired of all these hit pieces on Meta/Zuckerberg. At least they have discipline (sharp revenue focus), conviction (betting on AI + metaverse), and focus (flatter structure than other peer companies even before the pandemic bloat) -- a lot more than I can say for a majority of tech companies these days...

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#72

Post by dekervin »

amelius wrote: post #56
neel8986 wrote: post #12

Meta is still a 600B company and large credit goes to Zukerberg. His insight into jumping to mobile at the very beginning, making critical acquisitions, relentlessly going to new geographies, investment in AI all played off. Every major company made mistake including Google ( Google Plus ), Microsoft ( Windows phone ) and apple ( entire 90s ). A company making mistake just means they are still taking risks and not sa…

> Just one or two cycle hardware innovation may make VR successful. Yes, especially if you consider that now AI can create entire 3D worlds at near-zero cost ...

That's the thing I am aghast it has not yet percolated through the tech commentorship. The AI advances of yesterday completely have turned upside down the VR/AR/XR equation. (Note the use of past tense)

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#73

Post by joezydeco »

nine_k wrote: post #41
jjeaff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to look like a visionary leader when people will rewrite history for you. Facebook was famously late to mobile and almost missed the boat. Luckily, they had the resources to plow into catching up around 2012.

Who were the mobile pioneers who blazed the trail? Where are they now? Let's exclude Apple and Google from the competition because they own the mobile platforms.

Snapchat? Instagram?

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#74

Post by amerkhalid »

muglug wrote: post #20
neel8986 wrote: post #12

Meta is still a 600B company and large credit goes to Zukerberg. His insight into jumping to mobile at the very beginning, making critical acquisitions, relentlessly going to new geographies, investment in AI all played off. Every major company made mistake including Google ( Google Plus ), Microsoft ( Windows phone ) and apple ( entire 90s ). A company making mistake just means they are still taking risks and not sa…

The problem of VR goes beyond hardware innovation: most people don’t want to completely shut themselves off from the world for hours on end.

I sold my Quest 2 because I rarely ever used after initial honeymoon period. It was clunky and required too much preparation before put it on.

But I am looking forward to Quest 3. Because I really miss the part of completely shutting off from my surroundings and being transported elsewhere. And really enjoyed random conversations in Table Tennis game and in their VR World thing.

Only after selling it, I realized how much those few minutes in it were worth.

EDIT: Now I think VR/meta is correct long term move.

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#75

Post by Panini_Jones »

uptownfunk wrote: post #19

Mistakes happen, the bigger you are the bigger your mistakes. It’s a good reminder that we are all mortals here. Frankly based on how addicted almost everyone is to their cell phones and social media it was the natural move to make, I think meta fumbled the execution or was just too premature. AI is a great pivot. I think they will be fine.

> AI is a great pivot.

What is the "pivot", exactly?

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#76

Post by rubicon33 »

kibwen wrote: post #64
kingcharles wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will eventually become one of the most significant technologies in history, alongside AI, in my opinion. People are confusing bulky headsets with the general concept of VR. If I showed you a working holodeck today you would think it significant. Mark made the right choice to go balls deep on VR when he did. I don't think he should dial back. When going through hell, keep going.

> People are confusing bulky headsets with the general concept of VR. True, and it's still entirely reasonable to criticize Facebook on this count, because they have absolutely no plans beyond VR headsets. Any technology to take VR to the next level isn't even a glimmer on the horizon; we are still decades too early.

That's not really true at all. Quest Pro is technically an AR headset with full color pass through. It's extremely limited to be sure, but it's not like meta is ignoring AR.

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#77

Post by awegio »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #22

There has to be some incredible lag in the news media, to be reporting this at this time when Meta managed to almost triple its stock price in less than a year. Meta beat all analyst estimates in its earnings call, whatever Meta is doing it’s working. My only regret is not investing enough into Meta when it was 90$ (Now it’s 240$)

Well, it's about workforce, not the shareholders. There is probably some correlation between morale and stock price, though.

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#78

Post by skybrian »

deanCommie wrote: post #63
dan-robertson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really sure what you mean by ‘get away with’. Journalists are obliged to ask companies to comment and spokespeople make those comments. The spokesman doesn’t get interviewed or grilled and it is generally left to the reader to interpret the comment and decide if the spokesperson has ‘gotten away with it’. Do you have the same reaction whenever an organisation has a scandal and they ‘don’t want to comment on an on…

Yes. When Donald Trump says something like "As we all know Sleepy Joe Biden eats babies for breakfast", reputable journalistic sources will print it, and will have a sentence somewhere down the line that says "According to the FBI, there is no evidence that Joe Biden consumes human flesh. Likewise, when a tech C-suite exec makes vague references to macroeconomic conditions, a reputable journalist would include a sent…

It seems like the argument that it's false is harder than that to make. Could changes in direction, including expense cutting and layoffs, have anything to do with renewed profits?

There's more to making an convincing argument than putting two contrasting things side by side and letting the audience assume it proves something.

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#79

Post by davnn »

reaperducer wrote: post #39
neel8986 wrote: post #12

Meta is still a 600B company and large credit goes to Zukerberg. His insight into jumping to mobile at the very beginning, making critical acquisitions, relentlessly going to new geographies, investment in AI all played off. Every major company made mistake including Google ( Google Plus ), Microsoft ( Windows phone ) and apple ( entire 90s ). A company making mistake just means they are still taking risks and not sa…

His insight into jumping to mobile at the very beginning Wha? This is revisionist history. Facebook was very late to having a mobile app. It was widely ridiculed for a very long time for not having an iPhone app, and when it did finally get one, it was so bad that it was practically unusable for at least two years. I remember a number of friends and family members giving up on Facebook because its app was so slow, ba…

They were betting on web technologies instead of native, which was quoted as early Mark Zuckerberg's biggest mistake [1].

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2012/09/11/mark-zuckerberg-our-bigges...

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#80

Post by nine_k »

fyrn_ wrote: post #51
nine_k wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who were the mobile pioneers who blazed the trail? Where are they now? Let's exclude Apple and Google from the competition because they own the mobile platforms.

They own the mobile platforms because they blazed the trail as you put it. That was the prize they were competing for, Meta was late with the HTC First / Facebook phone, and so they lost. Of course they would have liked to own their own little mobile fiefdom, they are incredibly valuable platforms

I honestly don't think there is a room for a third commercial mobile platform, after Apple started the smartphone market, and Google caught up soon enough after. Even strong and entrenched players like Palm, Nokia (with Tizen) and even BlackBerry could not hold.

In 2007, Facebook was way, way less mighty, and by 2012, it was late.

Speaking of Windows Phone: it had great hardware and good, innovative software. It's Microsoft's bureaucratic ineptitude that killed it, not its (possible lack of) merit.

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