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Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

cnbc.com

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Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#91

Post by glimshe »

asveikau wrote: post #12
Arainach wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Performance reviews aren't bullshit - it's crucial to have an objective (as objective as possible) system for measuring performance both to reward your high performers and to understand your low performers whether to provide support or to document reasons for firing them. Several kinds of performance management system such as mandatory percentages for each rating level ARE bullshit, but without performance management…

You failed the moment you said objective. Any such system needs to acknowledge right off the bat that these assessments are subjective, subject to human error and re-enforcing bias etc. Otherwise you're just high on your own supply.

This is a strawman. While a fully objective evaluation is hard or impossible in most cases, it doesn't mean that it can't be somewhat objective. The extremes are pretty easy to identify - amazing performers who implement lots of features with few bugs and who are easy to work with vs the asshole who gets nothing done. The difficulty is in the middle, and while subjectivity is unavoidable, you can use objective metrics as data points.

Also, a well built subjective review process is better than no process, for instance, using peers and customer opinions as input.

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#92

Post by neilv »

> We typically manage out people who aren’t meeting expectations over the course of a year, but now we’re going to do more extensive performance-based cuts during this cycle, with the intention of back filling these roles in 2025.

Are they effectively saying that anyone terminated this year is probably for poor performance?

Usually there's more ambiguity, like changing business priorities.

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#94

Post by tqi »

lacker wrote: post #73

When I was an engineering manager there, engineering leadership described performance reviews as, in a large well run engineering organization, you'll probably be firing 5-10% of your employees every year for low performance. (Well, "non regrettable attrition", which includes people who quit when they get pipped.) Lower than 5% at scale would be a red flag, not necessarily wrong, you don't want to "stack rank" with a…

Yeah 5% is a very weird number. Why not just stop over hiring?

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#96

Post by hellojesus »

bastardoperator wrote: post #38
TypingOutBugs wrote: post #18

Part of Zucks plan to stop hiring mid-level engineers this year (as he said on JRE)? I am very very skeptical of this idea - what do you all think?

It's 100% absolute bullshit. We've seen the tests, it can barely replace a low skilled job. Who's going to prompt these AI tools to do stuff and who's going to correct the bugs AI introduces? Zuck is high on steroids.

I assume that it's just the standard line that is fed to shareholders.

Shareholders like "we're cutting labor because of AI adoption" much more than "we're cutting labor to save costs and cull some deadend r&d". While both are fiscally positive, one gives off vibes of growth and innovation while the other doesn't.

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#97

Post by bsnnkv »

I really don't see Meta's social media products being able to compete with new challengers without lobbying to have them banned, even less so if they keep driving away talent.

The migration of US TikTok users to Xiaohongshu this week, to the point where it is #1 on the US app store while still having half of its UI in Mandarin has been particularly eye opening.

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#98

Post by tomcar288 »

asdev wrote: post #14

how much more confirmation do we need that we are in a recession?

if you use a more reasonable calculation of inflation and calculate real GDP according to that, you'll see we've been in recession almost half of the years for the last 25 years.

Personally I prefer to use the US case shiller housing index as a good indication of long term inflation. Housing prices are so high, it is the basket of goods that matters the most.

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#99

Post by yoyohello13 »

mechagodzilla wrote: post #70
yoyohello13 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the reason for the disparity. Low income people will swear on their life that we are in a recession, because they literally can't buy as much food as they used to be able to. But Middle-class -> rich people just point to the stock market and tell them they are wrong. This is a great time to be wealthy. All that juicy human labor is ripe for the taking.

The word 'recession' means something though, and it's neutral on whether or not any particular humans have more income or cheaper goods. If you get a raise at work, it doesn't mean we're not in an economic recession as a country, and if you get fired or the price of gas goes up, it doesn't mean we are.

Yeah I understand recession is a technical term. I'm just trying to explain why we keep hearing people say we are in a recession. Most people don't care what the term technically means. They just know their buying power is decreasing while wealthy people are doubling their net worth.

People just want to be able to afford to live and affluent people keep pointing to the chart and saying it's not a problem, but it is a problem. We probably need a new name for it.

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#100

Post by d1sxeyes »

sefrost wrote: post #77
highwaylights wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peacocking for the new President’s agenda. No need to overthink it.

Could you explain what that means in layman's terms?

The next president will have significant sway over decisions that will likely impact the tech sector’s direction. If the pendulum swings the “wrong” way, companies like Meta will face increased scrutiny, anti-trust investigations, regulatory oversight, and the like. If the pendulum swings the “right” way, companies will continue to enjoy free rein over their business practices.

Moving jobs back to the US (or appearing to), cancelling DEI programmes which are not approved of by the incoming administration, etc all lines up with this.

The more difficult question is whether Meta is the chicken or the egg. OP suggests Meta are courting Trump’s approval. I’m not so sure that Meta didn’t help put him there in the first place.

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