Facebook is far from done or broke. Especially now where we have the hype and progress around chatgpt. They are in an excellent position regarding that tech.
*if they can execute
A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs
141–150 of 193 posts
Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs
#142For me the big turning point at Meta was the acquisition of Oculus. At the time, it was great, forward-thinking and gave everyone a lot of hope for the future of Meta and even society if you believed the hype. This peaked at about 2020 when the opportunity for VR and remote work became real and necessary due to an unprecedented pandemic. However, we all know the rest; hyperfocus on VR to the detriment of the rest of…
Is there any kind of indication VR (or its cousin, AR) is important to any extent? Everything I know suggests it's a niche technology that has little chance of becoming anything but a niche technology. It's not made any significant headway in gaming, in entertainment of other kinds, nor in general business settings. There are some specialist domains where 3D visualization is worth the cost and inconvenience, but it s…
> It's not made any significant headway
What counts as significant? 20m headsets sold on par with a gaming console at least counts for something. Have you actually tried the Quest 2 or Pro, it's pretty neat. Not an iphone moment yet, it seems it'll be a slower thing, like the PC or the internet.
Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs
#143Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their focus on making Facebook for mobile platforms was smart, their efforts to make a mobile phone were late and substandard. By critical acquisitions I assume you mean Instagram and WhatsApp. Both were anti-competitive attempts to stave off becoming the next MySpace (but also successful). Everything else on the list of acquisitions looks like gambles that did not pay off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_merge…
> Apple have never bet such a huge chunk of their spending on a single tech that has been so resoundingly mocked. I guess the 90's don't count anymore.
I mean...not really?
It's not particularly helpful to think of Apple before Jobs' return as iCEO and Apple afterward as the same company. His leadership philosophy and his vision for the company were so completely different than Gil Amelio and his fellow suits, any attempt to draw conclusions based on things that happened during that period is going to be an exercise in futility.
Unless, of course, all you want to do is score points dunking on Apple. Which has been a beloved pastime of many tech people for about 40 years now.
Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Mi…
> Even strong and entrenched players like Palm, Nokia (with Tizen) and even BlackBerry could not hold.
What do you mean Nokia with Tizen? Tizen was Samsung's attempt at continuing with Linux after Nokia abandoned MeeGo.
Nokia was the massive smartphone market leader with Symbian, but was a hardware company at heart and couldn't keep up with Android which ate its lunch by giving all the competitors a free, competitive operating system.
Before Android came along the competition didn't really have much choice as they were even worse at software than Nokia was. Who knows, without Android the landscape might still today be Nokia & Apple sharing the market -- or maybe Windows Phone would've managed to become the second system.
Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Mi…
Was it really Microsoft that killed Windows phone? Or was it simply just too late. By the time it was really available I'm not sure there was actually a chance for a third platform to survive.
Their versioning seemed like a big problem and caused a loss of faith in the platform. They had an incompatible version jump and then another odd thing going on around the next version.
Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs
#147I 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 p…
I've turned Facebook every time when they come calling for my engineering talents. I don't want to work for a person like Zuckerberg, and 2016 is one of many reasons why. I don't care how much they would pay me, other companies that aren't as evil pay as much. And no, I don't consider Facebook on someone's resume to mean anything. They hired too many inexperienced devs just like Google did, and then dumped them just as quickly. It doesn't mean as much as you think it does to work for FB.
>I don't know, I'm just tired of all these hit pieces on Meta/Zuckerberg.
If Zuck didn't suck so much, you wouldn't see all these "hit pieces". He's not a target because he's rich, he's a target because of the things he's actually done that are evil.
Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs
#148Meta 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 ...
I completely agree with this and i believe lots of innovation in meta is happening here. The biggest reason for VR not taking off is the VR world at present looks funny and old like 90s video games and headset is heavy and clunky.
This can change completely if they can increase the resolution of headset, make them 3x lighter and with jaw dropping graphics created by generative AI streamed from cloud.
Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs
#149Meta 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…
Their focus on making Facebook for mobile platforms was smart, their efforts to make a mobile phone were late and substandard. By critical acquisitions I assume you mean Instagram and WhatsApp. Both were anti-competitive attempts to stave off becoming the next MySpace (but also successful). Everything else on the list of acquisitions looks like gambles that did not pay off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_merge…
Apple's famously very secretive, so who knows what they've spent money on internally that has never seen the light of day.
There have been rumours for the last 10 years that a bunch of people are working on a self driving and/or electric car, with little to show for it so far. I doubt anyone outside a select few in the company would know how much.
Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Palm, Blackberry and Windows PocketPC blazed the trail. iOS and Android were relatively latecomers that arrived with a more competitive product (iOS because it was much better than the previous generation, and Android because it borrowed the ideas from iOS and was free.)
capacitive touch and momentum scrolling were the differentiating factors.
Windows CE 4 was way ahead of iphoneOS 1, 5 years earlier.